Reading the Mark of Athena
by AC Sisters
Summary: The Olympians just got done with the council meeting (from the Titan's Curse) when Hermes reappears with a book called the Mark of Athena in his hands. The Olympians (including Hades and Hestia) also receive some visitors to read with. What do the demigods and gods discover from the Seven's trip on the Argo II? A lot of things. It's a reading-the-books story! Rated K - T.
1. Intro

**A/N: Hello! I've read many stories like these... and I kind of wanted to try one. And I haven't seen (or read) any other Reading the Mark of Athenas either..so yeah. **

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything- characters, MoA plot, etc.  
**

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_On Olympus:_

After the Olympian party, which was pretty amazing, as usual, the Olympians, plus Hades and Hestia but minus Hermes, gathered into the throne room again. Many were still worried about the demigods and the war in general. It was kind of nice to have that party, possibly the last one they would have because everyone was getting into "war mode". Suddenly, a light flashed in the room, interrupting everyone's thinking. Hermes appeared and brushed off his blue polo and khakis. He also had a book in his hand.

"Why are you so dressed up, Hermes?" Artemis asked.

"And what's that?" Athena added.

"Uh, because I wanted to? And it's a book I found in my bag of mail." Hermes replied. "It's for us to read I think."

"Ooh, what's it called?" Apollo asked at the same time Dionysus yawned and said, "Yay, reading."

"Why do you care?" Demeter wondered.

"Just curious." Apollo said simply.

"Anyways, the book is called...The Mark of Athena?" Athena said as she took the book from Hermes's hands.

"Oh! There's a letter!" Aphrodite said pointing to the sparkly letter that appeared on top of the books."

Zeus picked it up. "It says:

_Dear Olympians, Hestia, and Hades,_

_We wanted to warn you about the future. After the Second Titan War, you will have another battle to prepare for. Gaea is going to rise and the two camps will need to reunite. Here's a quick summary before The Mark of Athena: Hera/Juno has already switched the two camp leaders, Percy Jackson and Jason Grace, and sent them to the opposite camp. They both lost their memories, but slowly gained them back. Jason has befriended the Greeks and has went on a quest to recuse Hera/Juno. He succeeded along with his two companions, Piper McLean (daughter of Aphrodite) and Leo Valdez (son of Hephaestus). Jason and Camp Half-Blood have worked on the Argo II to sail to Camp Jupiter. Meanwhile, Percy Jackson has awoken and has traveled to Camp Jupiter. He goes on a quest (assigned by Mars) with Hazel Levesque (a daughter of Pluto, she has been risen from the dead) and Frank Zhang (son of Mars). They free Thanatos, so the dead will finally stay dead. Percy receives the trust if the Romans and becomes praetor of the legion. _

_So, we decided to send you the book the Mark of Athena. Also, some demigods will be joining you- DO NOT KILL THEM- THE FUTURE DEPENDS ON THEM. _

_Thanks, _

_The Fates_

Then another light, a purple and orange one this time, flashed in the throne room and eight demigods tumbled onto the floor.

**A/N: You like it? I know, bad first chapter, but it will get better, maybe, i****f you review. Please review! (I sound desperate...) **

**~Autumn **


	2. Chapter 1

**A/N: Whoa! 34 reviews? For my crappy chapter that I've decided to redo? (It's not going to be that much better..) You guys rock! :)**

******If you wonder why I chose the characters I chose, read the bottom author's note. (There will be more characters along the way...) **

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[Artemis's - but it's kind of no one's POV]

The eight demigods brushed themselves off. Artemis saw three demigods with orange shirts, and four with purple. _Camp Half-Blood and Camp Jupiter _Artemis thought. _Oh no, there together in the same room. This is going to be interesting. _She noticed Thalia, her new lieutenant, among the orange shirt demigods. Thalia was in her hunter's uniform. Artemis also noticed a purple shirt demigod with a praetor cape. Artemis briefly flickered into her Roman form, Diana. _I've seen her before... what was her name...oh, it was Reyna. She rejected to join the hunt. _ She flicked back into Artemis before anyone noticed. All of the demigods looked sad and exhausted.

"Where are we?" A boy with a purple shirt on said. _He looked like a son of Hermes..or would it be Mercury? _Artemis thought.

"Uh...I think we're on...OLYMPUS." gasped a girl with a purple shirt on. She looked perky for a Roman.

At the same time, an orange shirt demigod with blond hair commented, "Wow, this must be the old version of Olympus."

"What do you mean "the old version?" asked Poseidon.

"Uh, a friend of ours redesigned it after the Titan War 2." stated a curly-haired boy (who also had an orange shirt on).

"Did we win the second Titan War?"demanded Ares.

"Yeah we-" The blond orange shirt demigod was interrupted by a "BEAT THAT, KRONOS!" from Ares.

Aphrodite looked up from her nails. "Wait, did Percabeth get together? If they didn't I'm going to have another talk with Perseus..."

"You talked with my son?" Poseidon asked.

"Yeah, he was such a cutie." Aphrodite giggled.

"Uh, whose Percabeth?" asked the curly haired boy.

"Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase, silly!"

"Well sorry for not caring about couple names." muttered the curly haired boy. He spoke louder to Aphrodite. "Yeah, they got together after the war."

We all had to cover their ears from the ear-splitting squeal coming from the love goddess's mouth.

"What year is it here?" asked Thalia.

"We just got done with a council meeting about if we should kill you or not." Dionysus said bluntly.

"So about 2 years ago..." Thalia murmured to herself.

"Wait...who are they?" Another boy with dark red lips asked. He pointed to the orange shirts.

The orange noticed the others too.

"Well," Thalia said as she stood up. "I'm Thalia, the lieutenant of Artemis."

"Artemis?" Reyna asked. "You mean Diana?"

"What? That's her Roman version. We're Greeks." Thalia answered.

"OH MY GOOSE! THE GREEKS ARE STILL ALIVE! OCTAVIAN IS GONNA HAVE A HEART ATTACK!" screamed the boy that looked like a son of Mercury.

"Bobby! Shut up!" Reyna scolded. "And really? Goose?"

She turned to the demigods in orange shirts and gave them a cold look. "My suspicions are confirmed."

"Of course we are! We've been alive since..a long time." said a boy with brown curls in his hair. He also looked like a son of Hermes.

"Hey, where's your other half?" smirked a girl with stringy brown hair.

The boy with brown curls looked around. "I have no idea. Oh well."

Zeus finally had enough of these conversations. "INTRODUCE YOURSELVES! AND TELL US WHERE YOUR FROM." He boomed.

Thalia glared at her father. "I already said, I'm Thalia, the lieutenant of Artemis. And I'm originally from Camp Half-Blood. Daughter of Zeus, or Jupiter in the Roman world."

Reyna stood up. "I'm Reyna, one of the praetor of the Roman Legion, from Camp Jupiter, and daughter of Bellona. I'm not sure what her Greek name was."

"She doesn't have one, she's pure Roman- like Janus." Athena answered. **(Thanks for pointing that out guys!) **

"I'm Bobby," said the boy that looked like a son of Hermes. "uh, I'm a son of Mercury."

"That's Hermes in Greek." Thalia stated.

"No way! I'm a son of Hermes, or I guess, a son of Mercury too!" said the boy with curls in his hair. "Travis is the name by the way."

"Ha, that rhymed." Apollo laughed.

"Not really.." Artemis said.

"Whoa, I have two sons here! How's the pranking business, boys?" Hermes asked.

"Later Hermes, finish the introduction." Athena interrupted.

The girl with stringy hair in an orange shirt spoke next. "Clarisse, daughter of Ares."

"Mars is the Roman equivalent of Ares." added Athena.

"I'm Gwen, daughter of Apollo." said the girl with the perky look.

"Huh, I'm a son of Apollo." said the last Greek boy. "Will." He added.

The boy with the red lips burped. Gwen cringed, "Ew! That's so gross Dakota!"

Bobby leaned over to Reyna. "I still can't believe she's not a Venus girl."

"Shut up, Bobby!" Gwen snapped.

"Actually, you can be a daughter of whoever to think that was gross." Reyna paused. "I thought it was gross but I didn't express it."

Dakota laughed. "Okay, like Gwen said, I'm Dakota, son of Bacchus."

"Uh, Dionysus in Greek right?" Will asked.

"Yep." Thalia said simply.

"Okay, now that the introduction is done, we think you were gathered here to read a book. It's called the Mark of Athena." Athena announced.

"By the way, why are you guys so...sad looking?" Apollo asked.

"I think the letter mentioned that the two male leaders were switched." Demeter said.

All the demigods sighed at the same time. _That wasn't weird at all..._Artemis thought.

"Wait, whose your leader?" Reyna asked.

"Um, a guy named Percy Jackson." Will answered.

"Hey, isn't that the name of that guy that showed up at camp a week ago?" Dakota asked.

"Oh yeah! But then he went on a quest, issued by Mars himself, to free Thanatos." Bobby said.

"He went on a quest? Oh, great, Annabeth isn't going to be happy about that." groaned Thalia as Clarisse muttered, "He better kill some monsters for me."

"Is your missing leader Jason Grace?" asked Travis.

"Yes! How did you know? Have you seen him?" rambled Gwen.

"He showed up at our camp a few months ago. He's pretty cool." Will told them.

"Well, that's good?" Gwen said questioningly.

There was a small silence in the throne room; except for Apollo's singing along with his iPod. Everyone stared at him until he noticed and turned his iPod off.

Demeter broke the silence. "So, shouldn't we start reading?"

"I WANT TO READ FIRST!" shouted Bobby.

"You can read?" Gwen.

"For you information, I can." scoffed Bobby.

"Okay, Apollo, give the kid the book." instructed Hera. She wanted to know how her plan has worked out.

But just as Bobby was opening to a page marked "Chapter I" a letter fell onto Zeus' lap.

"Wait, we have another letter."

_Dear Olympians, Hades, Hestia, and demigods._

_You are going to learn about the start of The Seven's journey. You need to know is:_

_-Piper McLean, Jason Grace, and Leo Valdez went on a quest to free Hera._ ("I still don't get why they freed her." "I'm going to turn you into a peacock soon!") _  
_

_-Hazel Levesque, Frank Zhang, and Percy Jackson went on a quest to free Thanatos. _("We already knew that." "Yes, but the demigods probably didn't.")

_-The Greeks are heading over to the Roman camp- Camp Jupiter _("Woot, woot!" "Shut up Bobby!" "You shut up Gwen.")

_Reminder to everyone, NO KILLING ALLOWED. _("Darn!" "Be quiet Ares!" "You!") OR FIGHTING, _the point of this book is_ _so the Romans and the Greeks can maybe understand each other a little more.  
_

_Happy Reading._

_The Three Fates_

Zeus looked up for a moment. "Understand everyone?"

Everyone nodded.

"Go ahead Bobby."

Bobby cleared his throat. **Chapter 1: Annabeth**

"Oh, we get to see through the eyes of Princess." sneered Clarisse.

"Just shut up."**  
Until she met the exploding statue, Annabeth thought she was prepared for anything. She paced the deck of the Argo II, checking and double checking the ballistics to make sure they were locked in on. She confirmed that the white flag was flying from the mast. **

"Good, the white flag will help." nodded Athena.

"Why?" Dakota asked as he drank from a flask that came out-of-nowhere.

"It's a like a sign of peace." stated Gwen.

**She reviewed the plan with the rest of the crew. And the back-up plan, and the back-up plan for the back-up plan.**

"That's a lot of back-up plans." commented Hephaestus. **  
Most importantly, she pulled aside their war crazed chaperone, Gleeson Hedge, and encouraged him to take the morning off in his cabin watching reruns of a mixed martial arts championship.**

"He has good taste." Ares said.

**The last thing they needed, flying a Greek trireme into a potentially hostile Roman camp, was a middle-aged satyr in gym clothes waving a club and yelling "DIE!".**

"Ha! Now I have a funny picture of that in my head..." Travis laughed.

"Can we please get through a full paragraph without interruptions?" asked Artemis. She was really curious about this voyage. **  
Everything seemed to be in order. Even that mysterious chill that she'd been feeling since the ship launched seemed to have dissipated. At least for now.  
The warship descended from the clouds but Annabeth couldn't stop second guessing herself.**

"That's never a good thing to do." said Hades.

**What if this was a bad idea? What if the Romans panicked and attacked on sight? The Argo II definitely did not look friendly. Two hundred feet long with a bronze hull, flaming metal dragon for a mast head, mounted repeating crossbows that could fire explosive bolts powerful enough to blast through concrete. **

"Wow, impressive." commented most of the gods.

**Well, it wasn't the most appropriate ride for a meet and greet with the neighbors.  
Annabeth had tried to give the Romans a heads up. She'd asked Leo to send one of his special inventions, a holographic scroll, to alert their friends inside their camp. Hopefully the message had gotten through. Leo had wanted to paint a giant message on the bottom of the hull, "Wazzup?" and a smiley face, but Annabeth had vetoed the idea. She wasn't sure the Romans had a sense of humor.**

"Yes we do! We have good laughs all the time!" protested Bobby.

"Yeah, we like doing fun stuff!" added Dakota.

"Remember that one time..."

"And the other time we played that prank on Octavian..."

"Haha, he really thought of putting "Wazzup?" on the boat?" snickered Will and Travis.

"Boys." Artemis and Thalia said at the same time. They grinned at each other.

**Too late to turn back now. The clouds broke around the hull, revealing the golden green carpet of the Oakland hills below them. Annabeth gripped one of the bronze shields that lined the starboard railing. Her three crewmates took their places. On the stern quarterdeck, Leo brushed around like a madman, checking his gauges and levers. Most helmsmen would have been satisfied with a pilot's wheel or a rudder. Leo had installed a keyboard monitor aviation controls from a leer jet and dubstep soundboard and the motion control sensors from a Nintendo Wii. **

"Cool!" All the boys and gods exclaimed.

**He could fire the ship by pulling on the throttle or fire the weapons by sampling an album or raise the sails by shaking his Wii controllers really fast. Even by demigod standards, Leo was seriously ADHD.**

"He is, he acts like a drank five cups of coffee." Clarisse muttered.

Apollo whistled, "That's a lot of coffee."

"That wasn't the point, Apollo." snapped Demeter.**  
Piper paced back and forth behind the main mast, practicing her lines. "Lower your weapons," she murmured, "we just want to talk."  
Her Charmspeak was so powerful the words flowed over Annabeth, filling her with the desire to drop her dagger and have a nice long chat. **

"Ooh, you have a powerful charmspeaker on your side, that should help." grinned Hermes

"Whose side are you on?" asked Gwen.

"No ones', I just wanted to say that," He paused. "Well actually, I'm on the Greek now because I'm in my Greek form."

"Oh."

**For a child of Aphrodite, Piper tried really hard to play down her beauty. Today she was dressed in tattered jeans, worn out sneakers, and a white tank top with pink Hello Kitty designs.**

"Really, Hello Kitty?" Reyna muttered to herself.

"I think our praetor is getting jealous.." Bobby told Dakota. They both smirked.

**Maybe a joke? Though Annabeth really could never tell with Piper. Her choppy brown hair was braided down the right side with an eagle's feather.**

"Is trying to look Native American?" Hestia asked quietly, speaking for the first time.

"She is Native American.." Thalia said gently. Hestia smiled warmly at the demigods. Everyone couldn't help but to like her. She felt like home.**  
And then there was Piper's boyfriend, Jason. **

Reyna clenched her fists. She was glaring at the floor, so hard, the others thought a hole will start burning right in the floor. Aphrodite switched to Venus and nodded sympathetic to the lone praetor.

In both forms, Aphrodite could feel the waves of jealously coming from Reyna.

_It just had to be a Venus daughter too. _Reyna thought bitterly.

Bobby decided it was time to continue.

**He stood at the bow on a raised crossbow platform where the Romans could easily spot him. His knuckles were white on the hilt of his sword. Otherwise he was pretty calm for a guy who was making himself a target. **

"He was a born leader." Gwen said softly.

**Over his jeans and his orange Camp Half Blood T-shirt, he had donned a toga and a purple cloak, symbols of his old rank as praetor.**

"That's good! Except, maybe he shouldn't have worn the orange shirt..." Apollo said.

"For once, I actually agree with him." Artemis couldn't help but saying.

"But it shows unity between the two groups." surprisingly Hera pointed out.

Reyna couldn't help but to think about her conversation with Percy Jackson before he left. She guilty thought of him as a co-praetor and how...well they could work together...

**With his wind ruffled blond hair and his icy blue eyes, he looked ruggedly handsome **

Reyna clenched her fists again.

"Yep, she's definitly a little jealous.." Bobby said singsong in Dakota's ear. Reyna, hearing the comment, glared at the two.

**and in control, just like son of Jupiter should. He'd grown up at Camp Jupiter, so hopefully his familiar face would make the Romans hesitate to blow them out of the sky.**

"That would help." Hephaestus said, while Ares spoke up at the same time, "They should blow up the ship! Then it would create an awesome war!"

"Then it would definitely ruin the unity of the two camps." Artemis said.**  
Annabeth tried to fight it, but she didn't completely trust this guy. He acted too perfect,**

"Oh, he does." Gwen murmured.

"Yeah. Sometimes waay to perfect." Bobby and Travis muttered.

"How would you know?" asked Dakota to Travis.

"He was at our camp for at least five months, I know how he acts." Travis shrugged.

"Whose the jealous one now?" Reyna teased.

"No comment." Bobby said simply. He almost commented on how Reyna actually teased him for the first time in the six years he's been at Camp Jupiter, but Athena was glaring at him to read.

**always following the rules, always doing the honorable thing. He even looked too perfect. **

"Blond hair and blue eyes, yep he sounds perfect." sighed Aphrodite.

"You do know your daughter is dating him right?" Demeter pointed out.

"Yeah..." Aphrodite trailed off.

**In the back of her mind, she kept thinking 'maybe this was a trick and he betrayed us. What if we sail into Camp Jupiter and he says, "Hey, Romans! Check out these prisoners and this cool ship I brought you."**

"Heh, that would be kind of funny." Clarisse said.

"You want our friends to get captured?" Thalia asked sharply.

"No, but the way Princess said it was kinda funny."**  
Annabeth didn't think he would do that, but still. She couldn't look at him without getting a bitter taste in her mouth. He'd been part of Hera's forced exchange program between the two camps. **

"Stupid Hera." Thalia glared at the queen of the Olympians. Hera glared right back her.

**Without warning, Hera had plucked up Percy Jackson, Annabeth's boyfriend, wiped his memory and sent him to this Roman camp. In exchange, the Greeks got Jason. **

"Only the good thing is that I found Jason.." Thalia said.

"What?" asked Reyna. She really didn't want another competitor.

"Oh, he's my little brother, full-blooded." Thalia answered.

"No way! I didn't know Jason had a sister!" Dakota exclaimed.

**None of that was Jason's fault, but every time Annabeth looked at him, she remembered how much she missed Percy.  
Percy, who might be below them right now.**

"He better be." Will muttered. **  
Oh gods. Panic welled up inside her. "I'm a child of Athena," she said to herself, "I have to stick to my plan and not get distracted."  
Then she felt it again, that familiar shiver, as if an evil snowman**

"I had a nightmare about one once." Will said. "An evil snowman ruled the world and there wasn't any sunlight."

Everyone looked at him weirdly. Only Apollo looked disturbed.

"Now, that's a depressing nightmare." Apollo shuddered.

**had crept up right behind her and was breathing down her neck. She turned but no one was there. It must be her nerves. Annabeth wished she could pray to her mother for help, but now that was impossible. Not this last month since she'd had a horrible encounter with her mom and had gotten the worst present of her life.**

"I hate getting presents that I don't want." Apollo said.

"You should be grateful that you received a present." Hestia told him.

"Oh yes, I am, Lady Hestia." Apollo replied back. Only Hestia can make him more...mature.**  
The cold pressed closer. She thought she heard a voice in the wind, laughing. Every muscle in her body tensed. She knew something was about to be terribly wrong. She almost ordered Leo to reverse course. And then, in the valley below, horns sounded.  
The Romans had spotted them. **

"DUN DUN DUNNN!" shouted Travis and Apollo.

**Annabeth thought she knew what to expect. Jason had described Camp Jupiter to her in great detail. Still, she had trouble believing her eyes. Ringed by the Oakland Hills, the valley was at least twice the size of Camp Half-Blood. A small river snaked around one side and curled toward the center like a capital letter _G, _emptying into a sparkling blue lake.**

"It sounds like a cool place." Will said.

**Directly below the ship, nestled at the edge of the lake, the city of New Rome gleamed in the sunlight. She recognized landmarks Jason had told her about-the hippodrome, the coliseum, the temples and parks, the neighborhood of Seven Hills with its winding streets, colorful villas, and flowering gardens.**

"Annabeth would love it there, with all that architect stuff there." Thalia commented.

"Did you know that the arches of the Colosseum are framed by half-col-" started Athena.

"No one cares Athena." snapped Ares.

"You should, the Romans loved you. Unlike me." Athena muttered the last part.

Bobby decided to continue on.

**She saw evidence of the Romans' recent battle with an army of monsters. The dome was cracked open on a building she guessed was the Senate House. The forum's broad plaza was pitted with craters. Some fountains and statues were in ruins.**

**Dozens of kids in togas were streaming out of the Senate House to get a better view of the _Argo II. _More Romans emerged from the shops and cafes, gawking and pointing as the ship descended.**

**About half a mile to the west, where the horns were blowing, a Roman fort stood on a hill. It looked just like the illustrations Annabeth had seen in the military history books-with a defensive trench lined with spikes, high walls, and watchtowers armed with scorpion ballistae. Inside, perfect rows of white barracks lined the main road-the Via Principalis.**

**A column of demigods emerged from the gates, their armor and spears glinting as they hurried toward the city. In the midst of their ranks was an actual war elephant.**

"No fair! I wish we had an elephant! We have just have stupid harpies." whined Travis.

"That would be cool." Will agreed.

"Idiots." Clarisse grumbled.

**Annabeth wanted to land the _Argo II _before those troops arrived, but the ground was still several hundred feet below. She scanned the crowd, hoping to catch a glimpse of Percy. **

"Ooh! Finally some action!" Aphrodite squealed.

"What? How does a glimpse of someone start action?" Apollo asked.

"It doesn't." Thalia rolled his eyes.

"Actually, it could." surprisingly Athena said, "Maybe if Paris hadn't seen Helen, one of the biggest wars of Ancient Greece might not have happened."

"Oh." was the only comment.

**Then something behind her went BOOM!**

"Oh, I think this is when the exploding statue comes in." Hephaestus said.

"What statue?" Poseidon asked.

"The one mentioned at the beginning." Zeus said impatiently.

**The explosion almost knocked her overboard. She whirled and found herself eye to eye with an angry statue.**

**"Unacceptable!" he shrieked.**

"Hey, I think that's Terminus!" Dakota announced.

"Who?" Clarisse questioned.

"The Roman god of boundaries, I think the book will go into detail." Gwen explained quickly.

**Apparently he had exploded into existence, right there on the deck. Sulfurous yellow smoke rolled off his shoulders. Cinders popped around his curly hair. From the waist down, he was nothing but a square marble pedestal. From the waist up, he was a muscular human figure in a carved toga.**

**"I will _not _have weapons inside the Pomerian Line!" he announced in a fussy teacher voice.**

"I hate fussy teachers." Travis muttered.

** "I _certainly _will not have Greeks!"**

**Jason shot Annabeth a look that said _I've got this._**

**"Terminus," he said. "It's me. Jason Grace."**

**"Oh, I remember _you, _Jason!" Terminus grumbled. "I thought you had better sense than to consort with the enemies of Rome!"**

**"But they're not enemies-"**

"Nope we aren't!" Apollo cheered.

"What the Hades..." Artemis groaned.

"Stop saying my name like that!"

**"That's right," Piper jumped in. "We just want to talk. If we could-"**

**"Ha!" snapped the statue. "Don't try that charmspeak on _me, _young lady. And put down that dagger before I slap it out of your hands!"**

"Uh how?" Will said confusingly. Apollo nodded in an agreement.

"You'll see." Bobby said.

**Piper glanced at her bronze dagger, which she'd apparently forgotten she was holding. "Um . . . okay. But how would you slap it? You don't have any arms."**

**"Impertinence!" There was a sharp POP and a flash of yellow. Piper yelped and dropped the dagger, which was now smoking and sparking.**

"Oh that's how!" Will said getting it. Apollo gave a thumbs up.

**"Lucky for you I've just been through a battle," Terminus announced. "If I were at full strength, I would've blasted flying monstrosity out of the sky already!"**

**"Hold up." Leo stepped forward, wagging his Wii controller. "Did you just call my ship a monstrosity? I _know _you didn't do that."**

"He's very protective of that ship." Reyna commented.

"You have no idea." Clarisse said.

**The idea that Leo might attack the statue with his gaming device was enough to snap Annabeth out of her shock.**

Travis started laughing uncontrollably. Everyone just stared at him. "Uh, funny mental image." Everyone turned their attention back to the book.

**"Let's all calm down." She raised her hands to show she had no weapons. "I take it you're Terminus, the god of boundaries. Jason told me you protect the city of New Rome, right? I'm Annabeth Chase, daughter of-"**

**"Oh, I know who _you _are!" The statue glared at her with its blank white eyes. **

"Scarey and creepy."

**"A child of _Athena,_ Minerva's Greek form. Scandalous! You Greeks have no sense of decency. We Romans know the proper place for _that _goddess."**

"Woah whaaa-?" Apollo said holding out the what.

"Yeah, what does that mean?" Hermes asked curiously.

The Roman demigods looked anywhere but the goddess.

"I believe it's explained in the book." Athena said coldly. "At least, it should be."

**Annabeth clenched her jaw. This statue wasn't making it easy to be diplomatic. "What exactly do you mean, _that _goddess? And what's so scandalous about-"**

**"Right!" Jason inturrupted. "Anyway, Terminus, we're here on a mission of peace. We'd love permission to land so we can-"**

**"Impossible!" the god squeaked. "Lay down your weapons and surrender! Leave my city immediately!"**

"Haha..." again surprisingly Athena, Artemis, and Thalia laughed.

"It was the way he worded it." Artemis explained.

**"Which is it?" Leo asked. "Surrender, or leave?"**

"See, he got it too." Thalia gestured.

**"Both!" Terminus said. "Surrender, then leave. I am slapping your face for asking such a stupid question, you ridiculous boy! Do you feel that?"**

"Could you feel something if Terminus touched you?" Demeter said curiously.

"Um, no Lady Cer-, I mean Demeter." Reyna answered.

**"Wow." Leo studied Terminus with professional interest. "You're wound up pretty tight. You got any gears in there that need loosening? I could take a look."**

**He exchanged the Wii controller for a screwdriver from his magic tool belt and tapped the statue's pedestal.**

_Terminus isn't going to appreciate that _Reyna thought._  
_

**"Stop that!" Terminus insisted. another small explosion made Leo drop his screwdriver. "Weapons are _not _allowed on Roman soil inside the Pomerian Line."**

"What's that?" Will asked.

"The City limits of Rome." Bobby said.

**"The what?" Piper asked.**

**"City limits," Jason translated.**

**"And this entire ship is a weapon!" Terminus said. "You _cannot _land!"**

**Down in the valley, the legion reinforcements were halfway to the city. The crowd in the forum was over a hundred strong now. Annabeth scanned the faces and . . . oh, gods. She saw him.**

Aphrodite squeals as everyone has to hold their ears.

** He was walking toward the ship with his arms around two other kids like they were best buddies-a stout boy with a black buzz cut, **"Frank" **and a girl wearing a Roman cavalry helmet. **"Hazel" **Percy looked so at ease, so happy. He wore a purple cape just like Jason's-the mark of a praetor.**

"Drama..." Apollo, Hermes, and their sons dragged out.

**Annabeth's heart did a gymnastic's routine.**

"So cute!" Aphrodite clapped excitedly.

**"Leo, stop the ship," she ordered.**

**"What?"**

**"You heard me. Keep us right where we are."**

**Leo pulled out his controller and yanked it upward. All ninety oars froze in place. The ship stopped sinking.**

"Woah that's pretty cool if we were interested in ships." Reyna said impressively.

"You guys don't like ships?" Poseidon asked sadly.

"Um..no the Romans didn't really rely on the ocean then and now." Reyna said hesitantly.

**"Terminus," Annabeth said, "there's no rule against hovering _over _New Rome, is there?"**

**The statue frowned. "Well, no . . ."**

**"We can keep the ship aloft," Annabeth said. "We'll use a rope ladder to reach the forum. That way, the ship won't be on Roman soil. Not technically."**

**The statue seemed to ponder this. Annabeth wondered if he was scratching his chin with imaginary hands.**

"Please consider, please consider..." chanted the Greek demigods.

**"I like technicalities," he admitted. "Still . . ."**

**"All our weapons will stay aboard the ship," Annabeth promised. "I assume the Romans-even those reinforcements marching toward us-will also have to honor your rules inside the Pomerian Line if you tell them to?"**

**"Of course!" Terminus said. "Do I look like I tolerate rule breakers?"**

"Nope he doesn't." Bobby said popping the p.

**"Uh, Annabeth . . ." Leo said. "You sure this is a good idea?"**

**She closed her fists to keep them from shaking. That cold feeling was still there. It floated just behind her, and now that Terminus was no longer shouting and causing explosions, she thought she could hear the presence laughing, as if it were delighted by the bad choices she was making.**

"I wonder what's happening to her..." Artemis thought. Even though she rejected the hunt, she still cared for the daughter of Athena.

**But Percy was down there . . . he was so close. She _had _to reach him.**

Aphrodite squeals again. "I can't wait for their reunion! It _has_ to be in there!"

"I can't wait for you to stop squealing!" snapped Athena.

"Aw, your just mad that Percabeth is happily dating."

"It hasn't been that happily, with him being gone for half of their relationship time." Thalia muttered to the demigods.

**"It'll be fine," she said. "No one will be armed. We can talk in peace. Terminus will make sure each side obeys the rules." She looked at the marble statue. "Do we have an agreement?"**

**Terminus sniffed. "I suppose. For now. You may climb down your ladder to New Rome, daughter of Athena. _Please _try not to destroy my town."**

"Yes, we rather not want to rebuild our city _again._" Gwen said sharply.

"Oh we won't because you see, us Greeks aren't destroyers like you Romans." Clarisse stated.

"Oh, you-" Reyna said, now getting into the fight. The boys started to get ready to fight.

"ENOUGH LADIES!" Artemis shouted.

"That's it for chapter one." Bobby said.

"Who wants to read next?" Hera asked. She was getting very anxious to see if her plan would work out.

** A/N:  
**

**I am finally done writing this first chapter! I hope I can update every week, I want to get this done before the House of Hades comes out. I mentioned about why I chose the characters. To be honest, I just chose them randomly.  
**

**I changed the time, they're reading this after the war council in the Titan's Curse. The gods and goddesses are from that time too. But the Greeks and Romans are from after Percy, Frank, and Hazel went on their quest. **

**So thanks for reviewing, and remember to review for this chapter too! And like I mentioned earlier, more characters will come in, and some will leave. You can also suggest characters (beside monsters or anything before the Olympians)  
**

**Okay, bye now!**

**~Autumn **


	3. Chapter 2

**Ch. 2**

**A/N: I have good new and bad news. Bad news: I'm kind of sick. (I guess it doesn't really affect you guys...) Good News: Which means another update! Plus I sorta owe you guys an update. Whoo! Please read the author's note if you wondered about the last chapter... Also, there might be a little OCC..and confusion.**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. **

* * *

"So, whose reading next?" Zeus boomed.

"Uh, I will Lord Zeus." Will volunteered.

"Wait! To make both sides fair, I thinks we Olympians should change between our Greek and Roman forms every other chapter." suggested Hera.

The Olympians were reluctant, especially Athena, but agreed to do what the Queen of Olympus requested. They changed their forms.

"Alright, go ahead Will." Ceres told Will.

Will cleared his throat dramatically. "**Annabeth Ch. II"**

**A sea of hastily assembled demigods parted for Annabeth as she walked through the forum. Some looked tense, some nervous. Some were bandaged from their recent battle with the giants, but no one was armed. No one attacked. Entire families had gathered to see the newcomers.**

"Entire families?" gasped Thalia.

"Yeah, we have a bunch of families. Don't you?" asked Reyna.

"No, normally demigods that are Greeks never make it that far. And if they do, they go back into the mortal world." explained Will.

"That's one reason of the thousands that Romans are better then Greeks." snickered Bobby to Dakota and Gwen. They sneered at the Greeks.

The Olympians could feel tension brewing so they motioned Will to continue.

**Annabeth saw couples with babies, toddlers clinging to their parents' legs, even some elderly folks in a combination of Roman robes and modern clothes. **

"Wow." Clarisse muttered softly to herself. She hoped no one heard her.

**Were all of them demigods? **

"No, most were probably legacies." Gwen stated.

The Greeks secretly were jealous of New Rome. They made a mental reminder to tell Chrion about building something like New Rome.

**Annabeth suspected so, though she'd never seen a place like this. At Camp Half-Blood most demigods were teens. **

"The gods and goddesses must have been pretty busy then." Reyna said. The Greeks nodded, for once agreeing with a Roman. Meanwhile, the Olympians, minus Diana/Artemis, Vesta/Hestia, and Juno/Hera, who had no demigod children, looked everywhere but the demigods. Minerva scowled at the Romans though.

**If they survived long enough to graduate from high school, they either stayed on as counselors or left to start lives as best they could in the mortal world. **

"Yep." confirmed Travis.

**Here, it was an entire mulitgerational community. At the far end of the crowd, Annabeth spotted Tyson the Cyclops and Percy's hellhound, Mrs. O'Leary- who had been the first scouting party from Camp Half-Blood to Camp Jupiter. **

"Oh good, someone finally found Percy." Travis said.

"Obviously, stupid." Clarisse sneered at him.

**They looked to be in good spirits. Tyson waved and grinned.**

"That's so cute!" smiled Venus. Everyone that knew Tyson smiled fondly as they remembered the friendly cyclopes. Everyone else that didn't know Tyson just rolled their eyes.

**He was wearing an SPQR banner like a giant bib. Some part of Annabeth's mind registered how beautiful the city was- the smells from the bakeries, the gurgling fountains, the flowers blooming in the gardens. **

"Of course she did." Clarisse rolled her eyes.

**And the architecture...gods, the architecture- gilded marble columns, dazzling mosaics, monumental arches, and terraced villas. **

"Annabeth would be in a trance if it wasn't that she would see Percy for the first time in six months." Thalia commented.

"Yeah, her architecture talk is soo boring though." Travis complained while at the same time Venus shrieked. "Six months without her boyfriend? How did she live!"

"I thought we already established that her boyfriend was gone for six months." Diana said.

"We did?" asked Venus, clueless.

"Never mind! Continue reading Will." instructed Minerva.

**In front of her, the demigods made way for a girl in full Roman armor and a purple cape. **

"Hey! I think it's you Reyna!" Dakota exclaimed. He took another drink from his flask.

"No, it's someone impostering Reyna!" Gwen said sarcastically.

**Dark hair tumbled across her shoulders. Her eyes were as black as obsidian. Reyna. Jason had described her well. **

_He did?_ Reyna thought. _I wonder what else he said about me._

"I wonder if he described anyone else." pondered Bobby. He hope so, he was one of Jason's best friends.

**Even without that, Annabeth would have singled her out as the leader. **

"You do look like a leader." Thalia said.

"You are a natural leader, Reyna" complimented Gwen.

"Thanks Gwen." Reyna smiled. She nodded to Thalia in response to her comment.

**Medals decorated her armor. She carried herself with such confidence the other demigods backed away and averted their gaze. Annabeth recognized something else in her face too- in the hard set of her mouth and the deliberate way she raised her chin like she was ready to accept any challenge. **

"Do I really look like that?" asked Reyna.

"Um, yeah you do." Bobby replied.

**Reyna was forcing a look of courage, while holding back a mixture of hopefulness and worry and fear that she couldn't show in public. **

"You have the same expression as Princess." Clarisse noticed.

"Um, thanks?" Reyna said questionably.

**Annabeth knew that expression. She saw it every time she looked in a mirror. The two girls considered each other.**

"I bet if I got to know you a little more, Reyna, I would find a lot of similar characteristics between you and Annabeth." Thalia observed.

**Annabeth's friends fanned out on either side. The Romans murmured Jason's name, staring at him in awe. Then someone else appeared from the crowd, and Annabeth's vision tunneled. Percy smiled at her- that sarcastic, troublemaker smile**

"I hate that stupid smile!" growled Clarrise.

"I think it's rather cute. It's this interesting combination of sweet but sarcastic." Gwen disagreed.

"Wait, when have you seen...oh yeah, never mind." Clarisse said.

**that had annoyed her for years but eventually had become endearing. His sea-green eyes were as gorgeous as she remembered. **

"One of the most unique colors ever." Reyna murmured.

**His dark hair was swept to one side, like he'd just come from a walk on the beach. He looked even better than he had six months ago- tanner and taller, leaner and more muscular. **

"Ooh, he got more handsomer." Venus squealed. She took out a little notebook and wrote something in it.

"What are you doing, Venus?" asked Mercury.

"Just some little notes..." She replied.

**Annabeth was too stunned to move. She felt that if she got any closer to him, all the molecules in her body might combust. **

"That's scientifically impossible." Minerva rolled her eyes.

**She secretly had a crush on him since they were twelve years old. Last summer, she'd fallen for him hard. **

"Aww! That's SO ADORABLE!" shrieked a certain goddess of love.

Everyone else was too busy recovering from the shriek to respond.

**They'd been a happy couple for four months and then he'd disappeared. During their separation, something had happened to Annabeth's feelings. They'd grown painfully intense- like she'd been forced to withdraw from a life-saving medication.**

"It's pretty hard to do that." yawned Bacchus.

**Now she wasn't sure which was more excruciating- living with that horrible absence, or being with him again. The praetor Reyna straightened. With apparent reluctance, she turned toward Jason. "Jason Grace, my former colleague..."**

"Awkward..." Apollo and Mercury trailed off.

**She spoke the word colleague like it was a dangerous thing. "I welcome you home. And these, your friends-" Annabeth didn't mean to, but she surged forward. **

A bag of popcorn appeared in front of Venus. "What?" She popped a piece in her mouth. " It's non-salty and has low carbs...The good part is about to happen." Her gaze met confused looks on her fellow Olympians and demigods. "The Reunion of Percabeth."

The Olympians rolled their eyes. The demigods just looked less confused.

**Percy rushed toward her at the same time. The crowd tensed. Some reached for swords that weren't there. Percy threw his arms around her They kissed, and for a moment nothing else mattered. **

Aphrodite was tearing up, dabbing her eyes with a satin-looking handkerchief. Vesta smiled, thinking about Percy finally being reunited with his girlfriend. Minerva and Diana looked disgusted. Ceres Gwen, and Thalia was nodding sympathetically. Everyone else looked bored.

**An asteroid could have hit the planet and wiped out all life, and Annabeth wouldn't have cared.**

"But we would've!" Apollo protested.

"We're immortal, Apollo. We wouldn't die. " Diana contradicted.

"But we would!" Travis gestured to him and the others.

"Yeah, all those pretty ladies..I mean, all those demigods would have been gone!" Apollo corrected himself.

Diana just rolled her eyes.

**Percy smelled of the ocean air. His lips were salty. Seaweed Brain, she thought giddily.**

"Too cute..." Venus muttered.

**Percy pulled away and studied her face. "Gods, I never thought-" Annabeth grabbed his wrist and flipped him over her shoulder. He slammed into the stone pavement. **

"Yeah! That's how you do it, Annabeth!" Thalia and Clarisse cheered.

"Did he get hurt?" Diana asked excitedly.

"Probably not, I mean, it's Percy Jackson." Travis said simply.

"..And?" Bobby said.

" Percy defeated a couple of gods and titans. He can probably survive a little flip from his girlfriend."

"Wow." was the only comment.

Mars huffed, remembering his talk with that Jackson kid before he assigned that quest.

**Romans cried out. Some surged forward, but Reyna shouted, "Hold! Stand down!" Annabeth put her knee on Percy's chest. She pushed her forearm against his throat. She didn't care what the Romans thought. A white-hot lump of anger expanded in her chest- a tumor of worry and bitterness that she'd been carrying around since last autumn. "If you ever leave me again," she said, her eyes stinging, "I swear to all the gods-" Percy had the nerve to laugh. **

"I can't believe he has the nerve to laugh..." Reyna said softly.

"That sounds like our Perce." Will said proudly.

**Suddenly the lump of heated emotions melted inside Annabeth. "Consider me warned," Percy said. "I missed you too." **

Reyna really wished that Jason said something like that to her. _But it sounds like he won't, especially with that stupid Venus girl. _She thought.

**Annabeth rose and helped him to his feet. She wanted to kiss him again so badly, but she managed to restrain herself. Jason cleared his throat. "So, yeah... It's good to be back." He introduced Reyna to Piper, who looked a little miffed that she hadn't gotten to say the lines she'd been practicing, **

"Oh, I bet those lines were soo important.." Gwen said sarcastically.

"I wonder is he introduced her as his girlfriend." Bobby pondered aloud.

"Well, she's a daughter of Ven- I mean Aphrodite. She probably would have said something if he didn't." Reyna sneered.

"But Piper is different, she isn't into clothes or makeup like her sisters." Thalia defended. Even though Thalia wasn't that close to Piper, she felt like she should defend her for some reason. Maybe it was because she was Jason's girlfriend and a close friend of Annabeth.

**then to Leo, who grinned and flashed a peace sign. "And this is Annabeth," Jason said. "Uh, normally she doesn't judo-flip people." Reyna eyes sparkled. **

"Looks like I approve of Annabeth," Reyna spoke. "I do now too."

"Then I probably approve of you too." Thalia responded. "Annabeth is practically my younger sister, so if she approves of you, I do too."

"**You sure you're not a Roman, Annabeth? Or an Amazon?" Annabeth didn't know if that was a compliment,**

"If not, it's the closest thing too a compliment you'll get." Bobby claimed.

"It probably was a compliment..." Gwen defended her friend.

**but she held out her hand. "I only attack my boyfriend like that," she promised. "Please to meet you." Reyna clasped her hand firmly. "It seems we have a lot to discuss. Centurions!" A few of the Roman campers hustled forward- apparently the senior officers. Two kids appeared at Percy's said, the same ones Annabeth had seen him chumming**

"Who says chumming nowadays?" Travis stifled a laugh.

"It makes Annabeth sound..British." Will agreed.

Apollo perked up. "I like British girls."

"British boys aren't that bad either...especially that one boy band One Direction." Venus giggled.

"Hate that stupid band." Bobby muttered." **(AN: Most guys I know hate that band, but I have seen on the internet that some do like them. I kind of stereotyped Bobby..sorry!) **

**around with earlier. The burly Asian guy with the buzz cut was about fifteen. He was cute in a sort of oversized-cuddly-panda-bear way.**

"I love pandas!" Gwen reveled.

"No way, me too!" Venus squealed.

"They do look quiet cuddly." Ceres agreed.

"The first panda came to the United States in 1936 at a Chicago zoo." Minerva stated.

"No one really cares." Mars grunted.

**The girl was younger, maybe thirteen, with amber eyes and chocolate skin and long curly hair. Her cavalry helmet was tucked under her arm. Annabeth could tell from their body language that they felt close to Percy. They stood next to him protectively, like they'd already shared many adventures. **

"Not as many as us.." objected Thalia.

**She fought down a twinge of jealousy. Was it possible Percy and this girl...**

"He just kissed her...did she really just think that?" snorted Clarisse.

"She probably was a little confuse..." defended Thalia.

**no. The chemistry between the three of them wasn't like that. Annabeth had spent her whole life learning to read people. It was a survival skill. If she had to guess, she'd say that big Asian guy was the girl's boyfriend, thought she suspected they hadn't been together long.**

"I knew Hazel and Frank would eventually get together!" exclaimed Gwen.

"Ooh I have some plans for them..." Venus rubbed her hands together.

**There was one thing she didn't understand: what was the girl staring at? She kept frowning in Piper and Leo's direction, like she recognized on of them and the memory was painful.**

"Gasp! Has Hazel been working with the Greeks?" Dakota questioned.

"Well, she is a little different..." Bobby pointed out.

"We'll find out later." Jupiter said.

**Meanwhile, Reyna was giving orders to her officers. "...tell the legion to stand down. Dakota, alert the spirit s in the kitchen. Tell them to prepare a welcome feast. And, Octavian-" "You're letting these intruders into the camp?" A tall guy with stringy blood hair elbowed his way forward. "Reyna, the security risks-" "We're not taking them to the camp, Octavian." Reyna flashed him a stern look.**

"Definitely not." Reyna agreed with her book-self.

"**We'll eat here, in the forum." "Oh, much better," Octavian grumbled. He seemed to be the only one who didn't defer to Reyna as his superior, despite the fact that her was scrawny and pale and for some reason had three teddy bears hanging from his belt. "You want us to relax in the shadow of their warship." "These are our guest." Reyna clipped off every word. "We will welcome them, and we will talk to them. As augur, you should burn an offering to thank the gods for bringing Jason back to us safely." "Good idea," Percy put in. "Go burn your bears, Octavian." Reyna looked like she wasn't trying to smile. **

"Only Percy could light up the mood." Will smiled.

"He seems pretty funny." noted Neptune.

"He must of got Poseidon's humor," Pluto snickered. "Because Neptune doesn't have any."

"Like you have any humor." Neptune snapped.

"I have more humor than Jupiter." Pluto retorted.

"Hey! I ha-" Jupiter started.

"Enough! We're almost done with this chapter." Juno interrupted. _I need to get further in the book to find out if my plan is secure. _She thought.

"**You have my orders. Go." The officers dispersed. Octavian shot Percy a look of absolute loathing. **

"He get's that a lot."

**Then he gave Annabeth a suspicious once-over and stalked away. Percy slipped his hand into Annabeth's. "Don't worry about Octavian," he said. "Most of the Romans are good people- like Frank and Hazel here, and Reyna. **

"What about me?" whined Dakota. "I'm a good, loyal Roman!" Dakota took another drink from his flask. Bacchus looked longingly at the flask.

Bobby patted his back, "Sure you are."

**We'll be fine." Annabeth felt as if someone had draped a cold washcloth across her neck. She heard that whispering laughter again, as if the presence had followed her from the ship. She looked up at the Argo II. Its massive bronze hull glittered in the sunlight. Part of her wanted to kidnap Percy right now, climb on board, and get out of here while they still could. **

"Yes, get out of there as soon as possible." Minerva grumbled.

**She couldn't shake the feeling that something was about to go terribly wrong. And there was no way she would ever risk losing Percy again. "We'll be fine," she repeated, trying to believe it. "Excellent," Reyna said. She turned to Jason, and Annabeth thought there was a hungry sort of gleam in her eyes. "Let's talk, and we can have a proper reunion." **

"Heh, it sounded to look like Rey was going to eat Jason." snickered Bobby.

Suddenly, he ended up on the ground with Reyna's knife pointed at him. "Never call me that again." She hissed. Reyna got off him.

"Alright, alright." Bobby muttered. Then he remembers that was Jason's nickname for her. "Sorry Reyna."

Reyna just turned away.

"Alright! Chapter two is done..finally." Pluto announced.

"Yay Percabeth!" Venus who had flickered to Aphrodite randomly cheered.

Everyone just looked at her funny.

"We can now finally changed back to our Greek forms." Minerva told the Olympians.

Like the first time, another purple and orange light appeared and flashed, blinding everyone.

**A/N: So, ch. 2 is done. By the way, I'm so sorry about chapter one not being completed. I finally got it completed and I edited a few things too. So check it out if you want to. Also, I appreciate/accept constructed criticism - I like to know how you feel about my writing. Or you can just type your thoughts too. (By the way, if you find any mistakes, I'm sorry- I typed this all out personally and it took forever.) Oh! Remember, you can suggest characters you want to see in this story! (Two-four more are coming next chapter...) Thanks for all the reviews/favorites/follows! **

**Side note: If you don't like how I portray the characters we don't know a lot about, I'm sorry I don't think the same as you. This is how I like to think of them as. So Gwen, Bobby, and Will might be totally different in the books. (Although it is confirmed Will is a son of Apollo.) And this is just a general statement- not to anyone particular. **

**Review please!**

**~Autumn (: **


	4. Chapter 3

**AN: Hello! It's been a while..whoops. I finally decided to update..on the supposedly last day of the world. Well, this is probably my last update before Christmas. So, Merry Christmas/Hanukkah/whatever you celebrate! :)  
**

**Side note: I think I said in the last chapter that more than one character would join...I lied. I wanted to post a chapter today and I didn't know who to put in exactly except this one character. Hopefully next chapter there will be more characters.  
**

* * *

A satyr fell on the floor with a groan. He wore a pair of worn out jeans and a "Save the World!" shirt on. He looked around and murmured to himself, "Wow, I'm at Olympus."

He noticed the gods and quickly bowed to them all.

"Hello, I'm Grover Underwood, lord of the wild."

Thalia ran over and gave him a hug, "Grover! We're reading about Percy and the rest of the Seven's quest!"

"Wait, weren't you here at the meeting?" Demeter asked.

"Yes, I remember you." Zeus said. "Your that satyr that found my daughter and let her die!" He roared. Grover whimpered while everyone else looked worried.

Thalia quickly rushed to defend. "Dad! I'm alive here and now, it doesn't matter." She picked up the book. "I'm going to start reading."

**"Annabeth III,"** Thalia read.

**"Annabeth** **wished she had an appetite, because the Romans knew how to eat.**

"Yes we do." chorused all the Romans.

**Sets of couches and low tables were carted into the forum until it resembled a furniture showroom. Romans lounged in groups of ten or twenty, talking and laughed while wind spirits-**_**aura**_**- swirled overhead, bringing an endless assortment of pizzas. sandwiches, chips, cold drinks, and fresh baked cookies. **

"I wish we had nymphs bring us our food." complained Travis. "After all the training and stuff, they expect us to walk all the way up there to fill up heavy plates. Then we have to walk all the way over to hearth with our heavy plates. It's a lot of work you know." He breathed.

"You Greeks are weak!" snorted Bobby at the same time Clarisse snorted "That's such an exaggeration, Stoll."

**Drifting through the crowd were purple ghosts-Lars-in togas and legionnaire armor. Around the edges of the feast, satyrs (no, **_**fauns**_**, Annabeth thought) trotted from table to table, panhandling for food and spare change. In the nearby fields, the war elephant frolicked with Mrs. O'Leary**

"Hey, it looks like Mrs. O'Leary found another playmate!" grinned Thalia.

"Who was her first one?" asked Will.

"Cerberus."

"Wait, you've been down in the Underworld before?" Bobby asked, shocked.

"Yeah, once but not as many times Percy has." She shrugged.

"Wow."

**and children played tag around the statues of Terminus that lined the city limits. The whole scene was so familiar yet so completely different that it gave Annabeth a vertigo.**

"What the Hades is a vertigo?" Travis demanded.

Athena rolled her eyes. "It's like being dizzy. If you were one of my children, you would know this."

"Not everyone is as smart as you and your children, Athena," Apollo whined. "I swear you Athena-people read dictionaries in your spare time."

"Actually, I do." Athena responded as she pulled out a Webster Dictionary from her bag that had magically appeared.

"What a true nerd." muttered Poseidon.

"What was that?" Athena glared at him. Poseidon smiled innocently.

"Nothing."

**All she wanted to do was be with Percy-preferably alone. She knew she would have to wait. If their quest was to succeed, they needed these Romans, which meant getting to know them and building some goodwill.**

**Reyna and a few of her officers (including the blond kid Octavian, freshly back from burning a teddy bear for the gods) **

"What kind of freak does that?!" Clarisse exclaimed.

"Your only-freak-that-the-Romans-are-ashamed-of, Octavian." announced Dakota.

"Hey Apollo," Artemis grinned. "Isn't he a decedent of yours? Because it totally makes sense where he got his freakishness."

"Shut up!" came the reply. All the other Olympians laughed.

**sat with Annabeth and her crew. Percy joined them with his two new friends, Frank and Hazel.**

**As a for tornado of food platters settled onto the table, Percy leaned over and whispered, "I want to show around New Rome. Just you and me. The place is incredible."**

"Aw, how sweet!"

"How is that sweet?"

"It just is, okay?"

**Annabeth should've felt thrilled. **_**Just you and me**_

"On the bed." Travis smirked. Thalia and Clarisse both smacked him on the head. Travis fell over because getting hit on the head from both Thalia and Clarisse gave him a concussion. All the ones with dirty minds (*cough most of the boys/gods in the room*) snickered too, until the girls/goddess whacked them on the head. Only none of them collapsed.

Aphrodite, oblivious to everything that just happened, was writing in a pink notebook.

**was exactly was she wanted. Instead, resentment swelled in her throat. How could Percy talk so enthusiastically about this place? What about Camp Half-Blood, **_**their **_**camp, **_**their **_**home?She tried not to stare at the new marks of Percy's forearm-an SPQR tattoo like Jason's. At Camp Half-Blood, demigods got bead necklaces to commemorate years of training. Here, the Romans burned a tattoo into your flesh, as if to say: **_**You belong with us. Permanently. **_

"She made it seem our tattoos were...evil." Bobby pouted. Reyna couldn't help but to examine hers.

**She swallowed back some biting comments. "Okay. Sure."**

**"I've been thinking," he said nervously. "I had this idea-"**

**He stopped as Reyna called a toast to friendship.**

**After introductions all around, the Roman's and Annabeth's crew began exchanging stories. Jason explained how he'd arrived at Camp Half-Blood without his memory, and how he'd gone on a quest with Piper and Leo to rescue the goddess Hera (or Juno, take your pick-she was equally annoying in Greek or Roman) **

"Excuse me?" Hera questioned. No one would really look at her, not even her own husband.

"It's true." Thalia shrugged. Hera looked like she was going to blast her.

"You are, um, quiet annoying mother." Hephaestus said quietly. She glared at him.

**from imprisonment at the Wolf House in northern California.**

**"Impossible!" Octavian broke in. "That's our most sacred place. If the giants had imprisoned a goddess there-"**

**"They would've destroyed her," Piper said. "And blamed it on the Greeks, and started a war between the camps. Now be quiet and let Jason finish."**

**Octavian opened his mouth, but no sound came out. Annabeth really loved Piper's charmspeak.**

Hermes sighed, "I wish I had that ability."

There was a chorus of "Me too"s and "Totally"s.

**She noticed Reyna looking back and forth between Jason and Piper, her brow creased, as if just beginning to realize the two of the were a couple.**

"That's-" Bobby was cut off by Reyna's glare that screamed _shut up! _So he did.

**"So," Jason continued, "that's how we found out about the earth goddess Gaea. She's still half asleep, but she's the one freeing the monsters from Tartarus and raising the giants. Porphyrion, the big leader dude we fought at the Wolf House: he said he was retreating to the ancient lands-Greece itself. He plans on awakening Gaea and destroying the gods by...what did he call it? _Pulling up their roots_."**

"We don't have any roots." Apollo said as he looked down at his feet. Everyone rolled their eyes.

"She means the Original Mt. Olympus, dummy." Artemis snorted.

**Percy nodded thoughtfully. "Gaea's been busy over here, too. We had our own encounter with Queen Dirt Face."**

"Not too bad of an insult." Clarisse approved.

**Percy recounted his side of the story. He talked about waking up at the Wolf House with no memories except for one name-**_**Annabeth**_**. **

Everyone plugged their ears in time for the loud shriek of joy from the love goddess. Surprisingly, Travis didn't wake up.

**When she heard that, Annabeth had to try hard not to cry.**

Everyone smiled.

**Percy told them how he'd traveled to Alaska with Hazel and Frank-how they'd defeated the giant Alycyoneus, freed the death god Thanatos, and returned with the lost golden eagle standard of the Roman camp to rebel an attack by the giants' army.**

"That's pretty impressive." whistled the Romans and the Olympians.

"That's not even close to the quests he did at Camp Half-Blood." yawned _.

"Oh! Remember when he defeated the Mintour when he was twelve without any training?" Travis said.

Everyone turned to him slowly. "When did you wake up?" asked Will.

"Just now."

Everyone else looked even more impressed, at Percy's ability, not Travis waking up.

**When Percy finished, Jason whistled appreciatively. "No wonder they made you praetor."**

**Octavian snorted. "Which means we now have **_**three**_ **praetors! The rules clearly state we can only have two!"**

**"On the bright side," Percy said, "both Jason **_**and **_**I outrank you, Octavian. So we can **_**both **_**tell you to shut up."**

"Ooh burn!" Dakota and Bobby cheered.

"Hmm, one of his better comebacks." Thalia smirked.

**Octavian turned as purple as a Roman camp T-shirt. Jason gave Percy a fist bump.**

**Even Reyna managed a smile, though her eyes were stormy.**

**"We'll have to figure out the extra praetor problem later," she said. "Right now we have more serious issues to deal with."**

**"I'll step aside for Jason," Percy said easily. "It's no biggie."**

Bobby, Gwen, and Dakota all gasped at that statement.

"No biggie?! Of course it is! It's like being king," Bobby glanced at Reyna. "Or queen of Rome."

"Yeah, a lot of Romans work for that title their whole lives and he gets it in like a week!" Gwen added.

"Who the Hades still says biggie?" Grover asked Clarisse.

"Apparently Prissy still does."

"Ha! That's such a fun word to say! Biggie, biggie, BIGGIE!" chanted Travis.

Clarisse leaned over to Thalia. "99.9 percent sure Travis was dropped on his head when he was a baby." They snickered at the thought.

"HEY!" yelled Athena. "WE NEED TO CONTINUE READING!"

**"No **_**biggie**_**?" Octavian choked. "The praetorship of Rome is **_**no biggie**_**?"**

"I don't know if I should be proud or disgusted that I think like Octavian..."

**Percy ignored him and turned to Jason. "You're Thalia Grace's brother, huh? Wow. You guys look nothing alike."**

Everyone turned to look/study Thalia.

"Wow, you guys don't. The only thing in common is you both have blue eyes." Reyna observed.

"But their different shades." chimed Gwen.

"Yeah, you have freckles and choppy black hair." Dakota stated as he took another drink.

"Way to point out the obvious."

**"Yeah, I noticed," Jason said. "Anyway, thanks for helping my camp while I was gone. You did an awesome job."**

**"Back at you," Percy said. Annabeth kicked his shin. She hated to interrupt a budding bromance,**

"I wonder if he remembers our bromance.." Will wondered.

"You guys talked?" Grover asked in surprise.

Will scoffed, "Yeah, we trained together lots after the war."

**but Reyna was right: they had serious things to discuss. "We should talk about the Great Prophecy. It sounds like the Romans are aware of it too?" Reyna nodded. "We call it the Prophecy of Seven. Octavian, you have it committed to memory?" **

"Everyone knows that prophecy back at Camp Half-Blood." boasted Travis. The Romans rolled their eyes.

"Everyone knew that prophecy at Camp Jupiter before most of us were even born." Bobby said smugly.

They dropped the subject after that.

**"Of course," he said. "But, Reyna-"**

**"Recite it, please. In English, not Latin."**

**Octavian sighed. **_**"Seven half-bloods shall answer the call. To storm or fire the world must fall-"**_

_**"An oath to keep with a final breath,"**_ **Annabeth continued. **_**"And foes bear arms to the Doors of Death."**_

"Woah, major deja vu! Remember when Rachel started it and Jason finished it, only in you Roman people's language? And we all stared at him?"

The Greeks nodded.

**Everyone stared at her-except for Leo, who had constructed a pinwheel out of aluminum foil taco wrappers and was sticking it into passing wind spirits. **

"That's kind of cool." Bobby said, impressed.

"The wind spirits won't like that." Grover said.

**Annabeth wasn't sure why she had blurted out the lines of the prophecy. She'd just felt compelled.**

**The big kid, Frank, sat forward, staring at her in fascination, as if she'd grown a third eye. "Is it true you're a child of Min-I mean, Athena?" "Yes," she said, suddenly feeling defensive. "Why is that such a surprise?" Octavian scoffed. "If you're truly a child of the **_**wisdom**_ **goddess-"**

"What the Hades does that mean?!" demanded Thalia.

"Stop cursing with my name!"

"I think it will be explained in the book." Reyna said smoothly, ignoring Hades.

**"Enough," Reyna snapped. "Annabeth is what she says. She's here in peace. Besides..." She gave Annabeth a look of grudging respect. "Percy has spoken highly of you." The undertones in Reyna's voice took Annabeth a moment to decipher. Percy looked down, suddenly interested in his cheeseburger. Annabeth's face felt hot. Oh, gods...Reyna had made a move on Percy. **

Aphrodite turned to Reyna, "You know I would be totally ticked at you for doing that if I didn't have any plans for your love life. So, lucky you, I don't have to go all "Olympus Heights" on you.

Reyna looked red in the face, "Um..thanks?"

All of the demigods burst out laughing. "There's a ghetto side to you?!" exclaimed Clarisse.

Most of the Olympians were laughing quietly to themselves, except for Apollo and Hermes, who were laughing on the floor.

Demeter, who is known for being serious and uptight, stifled a laughter as she said, "It's really funny,

almost as funny as Hera going "Olympus Heights."

Hera huffed as that made everyone laugh more.

**That explained the tinge of bitterness, maybe even envy in her words. Percy had turned her down for Annabeth. At that moment, Annabeth forgave her ridiculous boyfriend for everything he'd ever done wrong. **

"Now that's really sweet."

**She wanted to throw her arms around him, but she commanded herself to stay cool. **

**"Uh, thanks," she told Reyna. "At any rate, some of the prophecy is becoming clear. Foes bearing arms to the Doors of Death...that means Romans and Greeks. We have to combine forces to find those doors."**

"As much as I hate the girl, thank her for finally getting that out!" Hera applauded.

**Hazel, the girl with the cavalry helmet and the long curly hair, picked up something next to her plate. It looked like a large ruby; but before Annabeth could be sure, Hazel slipped it into the pocket of her denim shirt. "My brother, Nico, went looking for the doors," she said. **

"Wait...what?" The Greeks looked confused. "Since when did Nico have another sister?"

"He first came to Camp Jupiter with Hazel." Reyna replied.

"Yeah, we took her in because one, no one would accept her and two, because I personally thought she was adorable." Gwen added.

"Wait, Nico has another sister?" Dakota asked. Everyone started chatting again.

"Enough!" roared Zeus. "I want to finish this chapter sometime this year." he muttered the last part.

**"Wait," Annabeth said. "Nico di Angelo? He's your brother?"**

**Hazel nodded as if this were obvious. A dozen more questions crowded into Annabeth's head, but it was already spinning like Leo's pinwheel. She decided to let the matter go. "Okay. You were saying?" "He disappeared." Hazel moistened her lips. "I'm afraid...I'm not sure, but I think something's happened to him."**

Hades looked little upset that his only son (that was actually alive at the moment) disappeared.

Hestia went over to him and patted his shoulder soothingly.

**"We'll look for him," Percy promised. "We have to find the Doors of Death anyway. Thanatos told us we'd find both answers in Rome-like the **_**original**_** Rome. That's on the way to Greece, right?" "Thanatos told you this?" **

"That's the Death god right?" Bobby asked Reyna.

Gwen clapped her hands sarcastic, "Very good, you get a gold star."

Aphrodite also clapped her hands, "Ooh! I love gold stars!"

**Annabeth tried to wrap her mind around **_**that**_ **idea. "The death god?" She's met many gods. She'd even been to the Underworld; but Percy's story about freeing the incarnation of death itself really creeped her out. Percy took a bite of his burger. "Now that Death is free, monsters will disintegrate and return to Tartarus again like they used to. But as long as the Doors of Death are open, they'll just keep coming back."**

"That's not good." Demeter said, concerned.

**Piper twisted the feather in her hair. "Like water leaking through a dam," she suggested. "Yeah." Percy smiled. "We've got a dam hole."**

Thalia and Grover's eyes lit up like a child's on Christmas day.

"I can't believe it," Thalia breathed. "He remembered." Then she and Grover bursts out into laughter.

"I am so lost right now..." Travis commented. Everyone nodded their heads, agreeing with him.

"When are you not?" smirked Clarisse. Travis just glared at her. Thalia and Grover stopped laughing and were breathing unevenly.

"It's an inside joke."

**"What?" Piper asked.**

**"Nothing," he said. "Inside joke. The point is we'll have to find the doors and close them before we can head to Greece. It's the only way we'll stand a chance of defeating the giants and making sure they** _**stay**_** defeated." **

"Well...at least he thinks we'll defeat them..again." Hephaestus tried being optimistic.

**Reyna plucked an apple from a passing fruit tray. She turned it in her fingers, studying the dark red surface. "You propose an expedition to Greece in your warship. You do realize that the ****ancient lands-and the Mare Nostrum-are dangerous?"**

"What the heck is that?" Apollo asked.

Artemis rolled her eyes, "It's what the Romans called the Mediterranean, remember?"

"Nope."

**"Mary who?" Leo asked. **

**"Mare Nostrum," Jason explained**. "_**Our Sea**_**. It's what the Ancient Romans called the Mediterranean." **

**Reyna nodded. "That territory that was once the Roman Empire is not only the birthplace of the gods. It's also the ancestral home of the monsters, Titans and giants...and worse things. As dangerous as travel is for demigods here in America, **_**there**_ **it would be ten times worse." **

"That is just fantastic." Thalia groaned. "My best friends and my little brother and his friends are going to di- I mean- get hurt really badly."

"You mean die." Ares said bluntly.

"Eh, I'm trying to be optimistic here."

**"You said Alaska would be bad," Percy reminded her. "We survived that." **

**Reyna shook her head. Her fingernails cut little crescents into the apple as she turned it. **

**"Percy, traveling in the Mediterranean is a different level of danger altogether. It's been off limits to Roman demigods for centuries. No hero in his right mind would go there."**

"Well, any sane demigod." Athena muttered.

"Would Percy be considered sane?" Will asked aloud.

"Not really."

Poseidon looked concerned, "Wait, what has my son been doing at camp?"

No one answered him.

**"Then we're good!" Leo grinned over the too of his pinwheel. "Because we're all crazy, right? **

"Well, I'm not, but the rest yeah." Thalia smirked.

"Hey! I'm not crazy either!" Will protested.

"None of us Romans are insane." Gwen said smugly.

"Except maybe Octavian." Bobby muttered.

"Well, none of us Greeks are totally insane." Clarisse defended.

"But that girl just said..." Dakota started.

The gods could feel tension building up so they motioned Thalia to keep reading."

**Besides, the **_**Argo II **_**is a top-of-the-line warship. She'll get us through."**

**"We'll have to hurry," Jason added. "I don't know exactly what the giants are planning, but Gaea is growing more conscious all the time. She's invading dreams, appearing in weird places, summoning more and more powerful monsters. We have to stop the giants before we can wake her up fully." Annabeth shuddered. She'd had her own share of nightmares lately.**

"Everyone has had at least nightmares." Demeter admitted.

"Except for me." Ares growled.

Hephaestus rolled his eyes, "Please, the other night you were crying for Mother because you said a _duck_ was chasing you."

Everyone laughed as Ares turned red and Clarisse was red from embarrassment.

_**"Seven half-bloods must answer the call,"**_ **she said. "It needs to be a mix from both our camps. Jason, Piper, Leo, and me. That's four."**

**"And me," Percy said. "Along with Hazel and Frank. That's seven."**

**"What?" Octavian shot to his feet. "We're just supposed to **_**accept**_ **that? Without a vote in the senate? Without a proper debate? Without-"**

"They were nominated by _me_, stupid, selfish, auger of Roman!" shrieked Hera. Everyone just stared at her, not knowing to either laugh or comment. So they did neither. Thalia continued, although she was holding back her laugh.

**"Percy!" Tyson the Cyclops bounded toward them with Mrs. O'Leary at his heels. On the hellhound's back sat the skinniest harpy Annabeth had ever seen-a sickly-looking girl with stringy red hair, **

"No, I thought she would have luscious, beautiful red hair." Hermes snorted.

"I love red hair..." Apollo said, dreamily.

**a sackcloth dress, and red-feathered wings. Annabeth didn't know where the harpy had come from, but her heart warmed to see Tyson in his tattered flannel and denim backward SPQR banner across his chest. She'd had some pretty bad experiences with Cyclops, but Tyson was a sweetheart. He was also Percy's half-brother(long story),**

"Not really, I mean Seaweed King had Percy with Sally. Then he had an affair with a nymph and Tyson was born. Tyson is born, end of story." Zeus stated.

"I think she meant the quest they went on with Tyson and all the difficulties of trusting him." Athena said.

"Oh."

**which made him almost like family. **

"Well he will be in a few years." Aphrodite murmured. Athena decided to ignore the comment, while Poseidon was trying to figure out what she meant.

**Tyson stopped by their couch and wrung his meaty hands. His big brown eye was full of concern. "Ella is scared," he said.**

**"N-n-no more boats," the harpy muttered to herself,**

"What's wrong with boats?" Poseidon pouted.

"They make me seasick." Hades shuddered.

**picking furiously at her feathers. "**_**Titanic, Lusitania, Pax**_**...boats are not for harpies."**

**Leo squinted. He looked at Hazel, who was seated next to him. "Did that chicken girl just compare **_**my**_ **ship to the **_**Titanic**_**?" **

"Yes she did." Clarisse said at the same time Aphrodite squealed and said, "I love the Titanic! It's such a good love story."

"Isn't that the movie where everyone dies at the end?" Travis asked dumbly.

"Not everyone, but almost everyone." Gwen replies.

**"She's not a chicken." Hazel averted her eyes, as if Leo made her nervous. "Ella's a harpy. She's just a little...high-strung."**

**"Ella is pretty," Tyson said. **

"Aw! Even Tyson has a love story!"

**"And scared. We need to take her away, but she will not go on the ship." **

**"No ships," Ella repeated. She looked straight at Annabeth. "Bad luck. There she is. **_**Wisdom's daughter walks alone-" **_

"Is she starting a prophecy?" Dionysus asked. Everyone turned to him.

"Your actually listening Mr. D?" Will asked.

"No, but I heard a prophecy so I just wondered, Wayne."

**"Ella!" Frank stood suddenly. "Maybe it's not the best time-"**

_**"The Mark of Athena burns through Rome,"**_ **Ella continued, cupping her hands over her ears and raising her voice. **_**"Twins snuff out the angels breath, Who holds the key to endless death. Giants' **__**bane stands gold and pale, Won through pain from a woven jail."**_

Athena and Apollo thought _I know this prophecy..._

**The effect was like someone dropped a flash grenade on the table. Everyone stared at the harpy. No one spoke. Annabeth's heart was pounding. **_**The Mark of Athena**_**...She resisted the urge to check her pocket, but she could feel the silver coin growing warmer-the cursed gift from her mother. **_**Follow the Mark of Athena. Avenge me.**_

Athena glared at the Romans, who looked a little uncomfortable with the goddess staring them down.

**Around them, the sounds of the feast continued, but muted and distant, as if their cluster of couches had slipped into a quieter dimension. Percy was the first to recover. He stood and took Tyson's arm. **

**"I know!" he said with feigned enthusiasm. "How about you take Ella to get some fresh air? You and Mrs. O'Leary-"**

**"Hold on." Octavian gripped one of his teddy bears, strangling it with his shaking hands. **

"That poor teddy bear." whimpered Apollo. He pulled out a teddy bear that had blond curls and a pink bow.

"Is that?" Artemis asked.

"Yes, shut up." Apollo huffed.

**His eyes fixed on Ella. "What was that she said? It sounded like-"**

**"Ella reads a lot," Frank blurted out. "We found her at a library."**

"Oh I like this harpy." Athena grinned.

**"Yes!" Hazel said. "Probably just something she read in a book." "Books," Ella muttered helpfully. "Ella likes books." Now that she'd said her piece, the harpy seemed more relaxed. She ****sat cross-legged on Mrs. O'Leary's back, preening her wings. Annabeth gave Percy a curious glance. Obviously, he and Frank and Hazel were hiding something. Just as obviously, Ella had recited a prophecy-a prophecy that concerned her.**

_Yes it does. I know you can do this Annabeth_. Athena thought.

**Percy's expression said, **_**Help**_**. "That was a prophecy," Octavian insisted. "It sounded like a prophecy." No one answered. Annabeth wasn't exactly sure what was going on, but she understood that Percy was on the verge of big trouble. She forced a laugh. **

**"Really, Octavian? Maybe harpies are different here, on the Roman side. Ours just have enough intelligence to clean cabins and cook lunches. **

"So, they're like you guys' maids?" Gwen asked.

"Sorta, they also patrol our camp at night for

**Do yours usually foretell the future? Do you consult them for your auguries?"**

"They shouldn't, and he shouldn't." Apollo muttered to himself.

**Her words had the intended effect. The Roman officers laughed nervously. Some sized up Ella, then looked at Octavian and snorted. The idea of a chicken lady issuing prophecies was apparently just as ridiculous to Romans as it was to Greeks. "I, uh..." Octavian dropped his teddy bear.**

"Wow, she's good. She actually left Octavian speechless." Bobby whistled.

**"No, but-"**

**"She's just spouting lines from some book," Annabeth said, "like Hazel suggested. Besides, we already have a **_**real**_ **prophecy to worry about."**

**She turned to Tyson. "Percy's right. Why don't you take Ella and Mrs. O'Leary and shadow-travel somewhere for awhile? Is Ella okay with that?"**

**"Large dogs are good,'" Ella said. "**_**Old Yeller**_**, 1957, screenplay by Fred Gipson and William Tunberg." **

**Annabeth wasn't sure how to take that answer, but Percy smiled like the problem was solved. "Great!" Percy said. "We'll Iris-message you guys when we're done and catch up with you later." The Romans glanced at Reyna, waiting for her ruling. Annabeth held her breath. Reyna had an excellent poker face.**

Reyna smiled, "I've been told that before." _By Jason._ She couldn't help but to think.

**She studied Ella, but Annabeth couldn't guess what she was thinking. "Fine," the praetor said at last. "Go." **

"**Yay!" Tyson went around the couches and gave everyone a big hug-even Octavian,**

"Aw! He's so sweet!" Aphrodite cooed.

"To be honest, I don't think Octavian has ever gotten a hug in awhile." Gwen spoke up.

"Aw, everyone needs a hug on in awhile!" Apollo grinned.

"Not really." Ares snorted.

**who didn't look happy about it. Then he climbed on Mrs. O'Leary's back with Ella, and the hellhound bounded out of the forum. They dove straight into a shadow on the Senate House wall and disappeared. **

"Wha-?" Bobby gasped. "How is that possible?"

"It's called shadow-traveling, kid." Hades smirked.

**"Well." Reyna set down her uneaten apple. "Octavian is right about one thing. We must gain the senate's approval before we let any of our legionnaires go on a quest-especially one as dangerous as you're suggesting."**

**"This whole thing smells of treachery," Octavian grumbled. "That trireme is not a ship of peace!"**

**"Come aboard, man," Leo offered. "I'll give you a tour. You can steer the boat, and if you're really good I'll give you a little paper captain's had to wear."**

"I can totally see him wearing that." Dakota laughed.

"I can't." said Gwen.

**Octavian's nostril's flared. "How dare you-" **

**"It's a good idea," Reyna said. "Octavian, go with him. Set the ship. We'll convene a senate meeting in one hour." **

**"But..." Octavian stopped. Apparently he could tell from Reyna's expression that further arguing would not be good for his health. "Fine." **

**Leo got up. He turned to Annabeth, and his face changed.**

"Woah, did he become an alien?" asked Hermes.

"No, she probably meant his expression changed." explained Artemis.

**It happened so quickly, Annabeth thought she'd imagined it; but just for a moment someone else seemed to be standing in Leo's place, smiling coldly with a cruel light in his eyes. Then Annabeth blinked, and Leo was just regular old Leo again, with his usual impish grin.**

**"Back soon," he promised. "This is gonna be epic." A horrible chill settled over her.**

"She's been getting those a lot, I've noticed." Thalia said with concern.

**As Leo and Octavian headed for the robe ladder, she thought about calling them back-but how could she explain that? Tell everyone she was going crazy, seeing things and clearing the plates. The wind spirits began clearing the plates. **

**"Uh, Reyna," Jason said, "if you don't mind, I'd like to show Piper around before the senate meeting. She's never seen New Rome." **

"He did not just asked that." Aphrodite gasped.

"He just did." Hermes stated.  
Gwen sighed, " How could he be so stupid?"

"Why is it a bad thing to say?" Apollo wondered.

"Because you don't go around asking the girl that has had a crush on you if you could show the girlfriend around. It doesn't help he disappeared, left her all alone, and comes back with the Aphrodite girl." Artemis explained.

Reyna stayed silent throughout the whole thing.

**Reyna's expression hardened. Annabeth wondered how Jason could be so dense.**

"That's what I just said."

**Was it possible he didn't see how much Reyna like him? It was obvious enough to Annabeth. Asking to show his new girlfriend around Reyna's city was rubbing salt in the wound.**

**"Of course," Reyna said coldly. Percy took Annabeth's hand. "Yeah, me, too. I'd like to show Annabeth-" "No," Reyna snapped. Percy knit his eyebrows. "Sorry?" **

"Aw Reyna, you should have let him walk his girlfriend around. They haven't seen each other in six months." Gwen commented.

Reyna bit her lip. Bobby intervened, "She was under a lot of stress,Gwen." He chided

**"I'd like a few words with Annabeth," Reyna said. "Alone. If you don't mind, my fellow praetor." **

Travis waved his hand around wildly, "I bet Percy is going to talk back!"

Thalia rolled her eyes, "I actually bet against because he'll know not to talk back to a leader in front a bunch of people. Loser gets to..."

"Give the other person ten dollars and say how awesome and smart the other gender is!"

Thalia huffed but shook hands with Travis. Everyone else looked on, amused.

**Her tone made it clear she wasn't asking permission. The chill spread down Annabeth's back. She ****wondered what Reyna was up to. Maybe the praetor didn't like the idea of **_**two**_ **guys who'd rejected her giving their girlfriends tours of her city. **

"That is kind of awkward." Clarisse sympathized.

**Or maybe there was something she wanted to say in private. Either way, Annabeth was reluctant to be alone and unarmed with the Roman leader. "Come, daughter of Athena." Reyna rose from her couch. "Walk with me."**

"I would be kind of scared if I were Annabeth." Travis whispered to Will. Will rolled his eyes.

"Done." Thalia announced as she tossed the book to Gwen, who caught it with ease.

"Guess I'm reading next." sighed Gwen.

Thalia turned to Travis. "By the way, you owe my ten dollars and I want to hear how much girls rule."

Travis sighed and slapped the dollars on Thalia's outstretched hands. Then coughed and muttered, "Girls rule and they are much smarter boys."

"Louder." Thalia nudged him.

"Girls rule and are much smarter than boys." He said.

"That's not announcing to the world. Are you a whimp?" She teased.

"GIRLS RULE AND ARE MUCH SMARTER THAN BOYS!" He shouted.

All the girls started clapping and the boys shot Travis betrayed looks.

Athena wanted to find out what Reyna had to say to her daughter.

"Okay, enough fun. Let's read the next chapter."

* * *

**Thoughts? Review! **

**~Autumn **


	5. Chapter 4

**A/N: *ducks from all the stuff getting thrown at me* Uh, hey guys? Sorry for lack of updates, so busy with school, blah blah blah. I finally got down to it and wrote this chapter! I appreciate all the review (over 100!), and follows and favorites! **

**Warning: Next update probably won't be for awhile. **

**'Annabeth IV,' **Gwen read.

**Annabeth wanted to hate New Rome. **

"But she couldn't because its so cool!" Bobby cheered.

"Actually, it's probably because of the architecture." Thalia corrected.

**But as an aspiring architect, she couldn't help admiring the terraced gardens, the fountains and temples, the winding cobblestone streets and gleaming white villas.**

"See?"

**After the Titan War last summer, she'd gotten her dream job of redesigning the palaces of Mount Olympus. **

"Whoa, wait, what?" Apollo interrupted, "Why would she need to do that?"

"This is after the war Apollo," Artemis chided, "Kronos wouldn't lose without a fight. He probably destroyed most of our palaces."

**Now, walking through this miniature city, she kept thinking, **_**I should have made a dome like that. I love the way those columns lead into that courtyard. **_**Whoever designed New Rome had clearly poured a lot of time and love into the project.**

Gwen grinned, "One of my ancestors helped with that project."

Clarisse leaned over to Thalia, "No one cares," she whispered.

**"We have the best architects and builders in the world," Reyna said, as if reading her thoughts. "Rome always did, in the ancient times. Many demigods stay on to live here after their time at the legion. They go to our university. They settle down to raise families. Percy seemed interested in this fact."**

"Ooh, Percy is already thinking of settling down with Annabeth.!" squealed Aphrodite.

"I can't decide if that's sweet or absolutely disgusting." Thalia spoke up.

**Annabeth wondered what **_**that **_**meant. She must have scowled more fiercely than she realized, because Reyna laughed.**

**"You're a warrior, all right," the praetor said. "You've got fire in your eyes."**

**"Sorry." Annabeth tried to tone down the glare.**

**"Don't be. I'm the daughter of Bellona."**

"Bologna? What kind of name is that?" Travis laughed.

Reyna coughed, "It's pronounced _Bell_ona. Noticed the "Bell" part."

Travis rolled his eyes.

**"Roman goddess of war?"**

**Reyna nodded. She turned and whistled like she was hailing a cab. A moment later, two metal dogs raced toward them–automaton greyhounds, one silver and one gold. They brushed against Reyna's legs and regarded Annabeth with glistening ruby eyes.**

"Has anyone tried to like, pop those rubies out?" asked Hermes, with a glint in his eyes.

"Lord Merc- I mean, Hermes- I rather like my security dogs with their eyes. Their eyes help with detecting lies." Reyna stated.

Bobby added, "And have you ever seen their teeth? They could cut your arm off!"

"Dang it!"

**"My pets," Reyna exclaimed. "Aurum and Argentum. You don't mind if they walk with us?"**

**Again, Annabeth got the feeling it wasn't really a request. She noted that the greyhounds had teeth like steel arrowheads. Maybe weapons weren't allowed inside the city, but Reyna's pets could still tear her to pieces if they chose.**

"If they weren't with me, they probably would have." Reyna said.

**Reyna led her to an outdoor cafe, where the waiter clearly knew her. **

"Well, when you're the praetor of Rome, everyone knows you." Gwen smiled.

**He smiled and handed her a to-go cup, then offered one to Annabeth.**

**"Would you like some?" Reyna asked. "They make wonderful hot chocolate. Not really a Roman drink–"**

"So? Chocolate is universal, just like coffee." Grover grinned. "And while we're speaking about coffee, I could use some coffee right now!

"Maybe later, goat boy." Thalia smirked.

**"But chocolate is universal," Annabeth said.**

**"Exactly."**

**It was a warm June afternoon, but Annabeth accepted the cup with thanks. The two of them walked on, Reyna's gold and silver dogs roaming nearby.**

**"In our camp," Reyna said, "Athena is Minerva. Are you familiar with how her Roman form is different?"**

"DIFFERENT?! I'M PRACTICALLY THE GODDESS OF NOTHING YOUR FILTHY ROMANS CARE ABOUT! INSTEAD YOU GIVE MY JOB TO ANOTHER FREAKING GODDESS THAT DIDN'T EVEN EXSIST BACK THEN!" Athena ranted as she started standing. A sliver light started glowing around her until Artemis, Demeter, and Aphrodite had to pull her back from attacking the four frozen Romans. Gwen snapped out of it and quickly started reading again.

**Annabeth hadn't really considered it before. She remembered the way Terminus had called Athena **_**that **_**goddess, as if she were scandalous. **

"ME? SCANDALOUS? I'M NOT THE ONE THAT WAS SCANDALOUS- THOSE ROMANS WERE! CHANGING ME TO A-" she was cut off by the duck tape that Hermes slapped on Athena's mouth. Athena ripped it off and glared at Hermes.

**Octavian had acted like Annabeth's very existence was an insult.**

"Actually, he acts like that around anyone that doesn't support him." Bobby piped up.

**"I take it Minerva isn't...Uh, quite as respected here?"**

**Reyna blew steam from her cup. "We respect Minerva. She's the goddess of crafts and wisdom...but she isn't really a goddess of war. Not for Romans. She's also a maiden goddess, like Diana...the one you call Artemis. You won't find any children of Minerva here. The idea that Minerva would have children–frankly, it's a little shocking to us."**

"SHOCKING? PROBABLY NOT AS SHOCKING AS FINDING OUT THAT YOU ARE NOW A DIFFERENT GODDESS!"

**"Oh." Annabeth felt her face flush. She didn't want to get into the details of Athena's children–how they were born straight from the mind of the goddess, just as Athena herself had sprung from the head of Zeus. **

"I'm pretty sure almost everyone knows that story, or at least the main details." Demeter stated.

**Talking about that always made Annabeth feel self-conscious, like she was some sort of freak. People usually asked her whether or not she had a belly button, since she had been born magically. **

"Hm, I wonder if she does have one..." Will wondered.

_**Of course **_**she had a belly button.**

"Oh."

**She couldn't explain how. She didn't really want to know.**

**"I understand that you Greeks don't see things the same way," Reyna continued. "But Romans take vows of maidenhood very seriously. The Vestal Virgins, for instance...if they broke their vows and fell in love with anyone, they would be buried alive. So the idea that a maiden goddess would have children–"**

**"Got it." Annabeth's hot chocolate suddenly tasted like dust. No wonder the Romans had been giving her strange looks. "I'm not supposed to exist. And even if your camp **_**had **_**children of Minerva–"**

**"They wouldn't be like you," Reyna said. "They might be craftsmen, artists, maybe advisers, but not warriors. Not leaders of dangerous quests."**

**Annabeth started to object that she wasn't the leader of the quest. **

Travis smirked, "She probably was, she's gone on the most quests."

"Jason might have gone on more," Bobby objected. "His first quest was when he was 12."

"So was Percy's and Annabeth's."

**Not officially. But she wondered if her friends on the Argo II would agree. The past few days, they had been looking to her for orders–even Jason,**

"Wow, shocker," Bobby muttered, "Jason is a born leader, he never takes orders from anyone. Except maybe Reyna."

**who could have pulled rank as the son of Jupiter, and Coach Hedge, who didn't take orders from anyone.**

"True that, he's one of the scariest satyrs." Grover whimpered.

**"There's more." Reyna snapped her fingers, and her golden dog, Aurum, trotted over. The praetor stroked his ears. "The harpy Ella...it **_**was **_**a prophecy she spoke. We both know that, don't we?"**

**Annabeth swallowed. Something about Aurum's ruby eyes made her uneasy. **

"No kidding, I hate talking to Reyna- no offense Reyna- because her dogs are always beside her." Bobby shuddered.

**She had heard that dogs could smell fear, even detect changes in a human's breathing and heartbeat. She didn't know if that applied to magical metal dogs,**

"It does," Reyna answered.

**but she decided it would be better to tell the truth.**

**"It sounded like a prophecy," she admitted. "But I've never met Ella before today, and I've never heard those lines exactly."**

**"I have," Reyna murmured. "At least some of them–"**

Gwen looked surprised, "When?"

"It was awhile ago," Reyna shook her head.

**A few yards away, the silver dog barked. A group of children spilled out of a nearby alleyway and gathered around Argentum, petting the dog and laughing, unfazed by its razor-sharp teeth.**

**"We should move on," Reyna said.**

**They wound their way up the hill. The greyhounds followed, leaving the children behind. Annabeth kept glancing at Annabeth's face. A vague memory started tugging at her–the way Reyna brushed her hair behind her ear, the silver ring she wore with the torch and sword design.**

"I don't think Annabeth told me about this quest." Thalia murmured.

**"We've met before," Annabeth ventured. "You were younger, I think."**

**Reyna gave her a dry smile. "Very good. Percy didn't remember me. Of course you spoke mostly with my older sister Hylla,**

"Oh my gods, I remember Annabeth telling me this after they came and rescued me!" Grover exclaimed.

**who is now queen of the Amazons. She left just this morning, before you arrived. At any rate, when we last met, I was a mere handmaiden in the house of Circe."**

Athena interrupted, "My daughter met Circe?"

"Well apparently, probably with my son." Poseidon answered.

**"Circe..." Annabeth remembered her trip to the island of the sorceress. She'd been thirteen. Percy and she had washed ashore from the Sea of Monsters. Hylla had welcomed them. She had helped Annabeth get cleaned up and given her a beautiful new dress and a complete makeover.**

Aphrodite pouted, "But she wouldn't let me give her one."

"I'm surprised Annabeth would want one." Thalia commented.

Travis snorted, "She was probably put under a spell." Everyone looked at Reyna to see if it was true.

Reyna shrugged," Possibly. We sometimes had to use charmspeak to persuade girls to join us."

**Then Circe had made her sales pitch: if Annabeth stayed on the island, she could have magical training and incredible power.**

"That would be so cool!" Travis exclaimed.

Artemis sniffed, "Boys, like you, wouldn't be welcomed on the island."

"Yes they are, just not in the same way." Hermes laughed.

**Annabeth had been tempted, maybe just a little, until she realized that this place was a trap, and Percy had been turned into a rodent.**

Everyone busted out laughing.

"Oh my gods, Percy as a rodent? HAHA!" Clarisse laughed.

Gwen added, "He must have been pretty cute!"

"Oh, he was," Reyna blushed. " I was behind the curtain when Circe transformed him into a hamster."

"So, the boys get turned into hamster?" Will asked.

"Obviously, stupid." Clarisse rolled her eyes.

"Never mind, I don't want to go there!" Travis said.

**(That last part seemed funny afterward; but at the time, it had been terrifying.) As for Reyna...she'd been one of the servants who had combed Annabeth's hair.**

"Her hair was so silky after I was done brushing it." Reyna admitted.

**"You..." Annabeth said in amazement. "And Hylla is queen of the Amazons? How did you two–?"**

**"Long story," Reyna said. "But I remember you well. You were brave. I'd never seen anyone refuse Circe's hospitality, much less outwit her. It's no wonder Percy cares for you."**

"Well, if anyone could outwit her, it's Annabeth" Thalia commented.

**Her voice was wistful. Annabeth thought it might be safer not to respond.**

**They reached the top of the hill, where a terrace overlooked the entire valley.**

**"This is my favorite spot," Reyna said. "The Garden of Bacchus."**

Bobby looked at Reyna, "Really?"

She shrugged, "It has a nice view."

**Grapevine trellises made a canopy overhead. Bees buzzed through honeysuckle and jasmine, which filled the afternoon air with a dizzying mix of perfumes. In the middle of the terrace stood a statue of Bacchus in a sort of ballet position, wearing nothing but a loincloth, his cheeks puffed out and lips pursed, spouting water into the fountain.**

All the Greeks cringed at the image.

"Great, now every time I'll see Mr. D, I'll think of this." Will groaned.

"Wait, he's right there." Grover pointed at a sleeping Dionysus. Everyone shuddered as they imagined him as the statue version.

**Despite her worries, Annabeth almost laughed. She knew the god in his Greek form, Dionysus–or Mr. D, as they called him back at Camp Half-Blood. Seeing their cranky old camp director immortalized in stone, wearing a diaper and spewing water from his mouth, made her feel a little better.**

"It would make me feel better too." Gwen smiled.

**Reyna stopped at the edge of the terrace. The view was worth the climb. The whole city spread out below them like a 3-D mosaic. To the south, beyond the lake, a cluster of temples perched on a hill. To the north, an aqueduct marched toward the Berkeley Hills. Work crews were repairing a broken section, probably damaged in the recent battle.**

**"I wanted to hear it from you," Reyna said.**

"Hear what?" Apollo asked.

**Annabeth turned. "Hear **_**what **_**from me?"**

**"The truth," Reyna said. "Convince me that I'm not making a mistake by trusting you. Tell me about yourself. Tell me about Camp Half-Blood. Your friend Piper has sorcery in her words. I spent enough time with Circe to know charmspeak when I hear it. I can't trust what she says. And Jason...well, he has changed. He seems distant, no longer quite Roman."**

"NOOOOO! Why did you have to go to the dark side Jason?" Bobby whined.

Thalia rolled her eyes, "Please, if it any side had a dark side, it would definitely be the Roman side."

"I object that statement." Gwen said coldly.

"Oh, are we in a court case now? 'Whose the darker side: Greeks or Romans'?" Clarisse snapped.

The Romans started standing up, as well as the Greeks, preparing their weapons.

"STOP!" screamed Hera, "You should all work together, we have to beat Gaea!"

Everyone turned toward her and glared at her.

"This switch is all your fault." Thalia muttered.

"Yes, but it did reunite you and your brother, didn't it?" gloated Hera. She turned to the Romans. "And you found yourselves another praetor, Percy, didn't you?"

There was no comment after that.

**The hurt in her voice was as sharp as broken glass.**

**Annabeth wondered if she had sounded that way, all the months she'd spent searching for Percy. At least she'd found her boyfriend. Reyna had no one.**

"Well, I might as well as a sign that said 'Forever Alone'." Reyna said sarcastically.

**She was responsible for running an entire camp all by herself. Annabeth could sense that Reyna wanted Jason to love her. But he had disappeared, only to come back with a new girlfriend.**

"That sucks." Aphrodite said sympathetically.

**Meanwhile, Percy had risen to praetor, but he had rebuffed Reyna too. Now Annabeth had come to take him away. Reyna would be left alone again, shouldering a job meant for two people.**

"That also sucks." noted Poseidon

**When Annabeth had arrived at Camp Jupiter, she'd been prepared to negotiate with Reyna or even fight her if needed. She hadn't been prepared to feel sorry for her.**

**She kept that feeling hidden. Reyna didn't strike her as someone who would appreciate pity.**

"No I really don't." sighed Reyna.

**Instead, she told Reyna about her own life. She talked about her dad and stepmom and her two stepbrothers in San Francisco, and how she had felt like an outsider in her own family. She talked about how she had run away when she was seven, finding her friends Luke and Thalia**

"Ooh, I'm mentioned!" Thalia smiled.

Hermes had a sad look on his face. "My poor Luke..." Apollo patted him on his back.

**and making her way to Camp Half-Blood on Long Island. She described the camp and her years growing up there. She talked about meeting Percy and the adventures they'd had together.**

**Reyna was a good listener.**

"I've been told that before."

**Annabeth was tempted to tell her about more recent problems: her fight with her mom,**

"I had a fight with Annabeth?" Athena murmured to herself. Annabeth was her favorite, why would she have a fight with her?

**the gift of the silver coin, and the nightmares she'd been having–about an old fear so paralyzing, she'd almost decided that she couldn't go on this quest. But she couldn't bring herself to open up quite that much.**

**When Annabeth was done talking, Reyna gazed over New Rome. Her metal greyhounds sniffed around the garden, snapping at bees in the honeysuckle. Finally Reyna pointed to the cluster of temples on the distant hill.**

**"The small red building," she said, "there on the northern side? That's the temple of my mother, Bellona." Reyna turned toward Annabeth. "Unlike your mother, Bellona has no Greek equivalent. She is fully, truly Roman. **

"I hate her," screamed Athena. "That D-list goddess stole my title!" She started glowing and growing taller.

"Athena," Zeus warned. Athena huffed but you could still a tint of a glowing gray color around her.

Reyna secretly smiled to herself as she thought about her true Roman mom-until she saw Athena seething in her seat, glaring daggers at her.

**She's the goddess of protecting the homeland."**

**Annabeth said nothing. She knew very little about the Roman goddess. She wished she had studied up, but Latin never came as easily to her as Greek. Down below, the hull of the Argo II gleamed as it floated over the forum, like some massive bronze party balloon.**

**"When the Romans go to war," Reyna continued, "we first visit the temple of Bellona. Inside is a symbolic patch of ground that represents enemy soil. We throw a spear into the ground, indicating that we are now at war. You see, Romans have always believed that offense is the best defense. In ancient times, whenever our ancestors felt threatened by their neighbors, they would invade to protect themselves." **

**"They conquered everyone around them," Annabeth said. "Carthage, the Gauls–"**

**"And the Greeks." **

Clarisse snorted, "Ha, that was a long time ago. We've gotten stronger; let's see who would win now."

"You haven't seen the legion at war." Reyna warned.

**Reyna let that comment hang. "My point, Annabeth, is that it isn't Rome's nature to cooperate with other powers. Every time Greek and Roman demigods have met, we've fought. Conflicts between our two sides have started some of the most horrible wars in human history–especially civil wars."**

All of the gods and goddess winced at the thought of The American Civil War, and how their children how to face each other.

**"It doesn't have to be that way," Annabeth said, "We've got to work together, or Gaea will destroy us both."**

**"I agree," Reyna said. "But is cooperation possible? What if Juno's plan is flawed? Even goddesses can make mistakes."**

Hera glared at Reyna. "I think I know what I'm doing."

Aphrodite giggled, "Well...you did take away Jason from her. And it didn't help that you took Percy away from Annabeth either."

Hera turned to Aphrodite, "Whose side are you on? She said goddesses, as in plural. And the two boys needed to switch so the two groups could trust each other."

"Except Annabeth doesn't exactly trust Jason." Artemis reminded them.

All the Romans wanted to stand up for Jason, except they didn't know if they should interrupt the goddesses arguing.

"That girl is messed up anyway." Hera shrugged off.

"That girl is my daughter!" Athena cried out.

"But it seems as though you guys had a little rift between you..." Hera argued.

All the gods watched the women banter with amusement.

**Annabeth waited for Reyna to get struck by lightning or turned into a peacock. Nothing happened.**

"I must have been busy..." Hera murmured to herself.

**Unfortunately, Annabeth shared Reyna's doubts. Hera did make mistakes. **

"Since when?" scoffed Hera.

Poseidon answered, "Apparently recently." at the same time Hephaestus said,

"When you chucked me off Olympus as a BABY."

**Annabeth had had nothing but trouble from that overbearing goddess, and she'd never forgive Hera for taking Percy away, even if it was for a noble cause.**

**"I don't trust the goddess," Annabeth admitted. "But I do trust my friends. This isn't a trick, Reyna. We can work together."**

"We're all in this together!" sang Apollo.

"Is that from High School Musical?" Hermes asked. They all looked at Apollo.

Apollo shrugged, "It's a good movie."

Aphrodite gasped, "You watched it too? We should watch all three of them together sometime then! Especially the third one, that gets me all teared up!"

"Okay!" Apollo said excitedly.

**Reyna finished her cup of chocolate. She set the cup on the terrace railing and gazed over the valley as if imagining battle lines.**

**"I believe you mean it," she said. "But if you go to the ancient lands, especially Rome itself, there is something you should know about your mother."**

Athena looked at Reyna, "What do you know about me?"

Reyna decided to not reply.

**Annabeth's shoulders tensed. "My–my mother?"**

**"When I lived on Circe's island," Reyna said, "we had many visitors. Once, perhaps a year before you and Percy arrived, a young man washed ashore. He was half mad from thirst and heat. He'd been drifting at sea for days. His words didn't make much sense, but he said he was a son of Athena."**

"A son of mine." Athena repeated.

Poseidon snorted, "No she said a son of Aphrodite."

"I don't appreciate the sarcasm Poseidon." Athena retorted at the same time Aphrodite gasped, "A son of mine? I thought she said a son of Athena?"

"It was sarcasm, babe." Ares told her.

Hephaestus pretended to throw up.

**Reyna paused as if waiting for a reaction. Annabeth had no idea who the boy might have been. She wasn't aware of any other Athena kids who had gone on a quest in the Sea of Monsters, but she still had a sense of dread. The light filtering through the grapevines made shadows writhe across the ground like a swarm of bugs.**

"Ew, I hate bugs!" Aphrodite cringed.

**"What happened to this demigod?" she asked.**

**Reyna waved her hand as if this question was trivial. "Circe turned him into a guinea pig, of course. He made quite a crazy little rodent. But before that, he kept raving about his failed quest. He claimed that he'd gone to Rome, following the Mark of Athena."**

"Oh, it must have been Jeff." Athena said suddenly.

"What?" Demeter asked.

"The demigod, my son, is named Jeff."

"That was a random piece of trivia."

**Annabeth grabbed the railing to keep her balance.**

**"Yes," Reyna said, seeing her discomfort. "He kept muttering about wisdom's child, the Mark of Athena, and the giants' bane standing pale and gold. The same lines Ella was just reciting. But you say that you've never heard them before today?"**

**"Not-not the way Ella said them." Annabeth's voice was weak. She wasn't lying. She'd never heard that prophecy, but her mother had charged her with following the Mark of Athena; and as she thought about the coin in her pocket, a horrible suspicion began taking root in her mind. She remembered her mother's scathing words. She thought about the strange nightmares she'd been having lately. "Did this demigod–did he explain his quest?"**

**Reyna shook her head. "At the time, I had no idea what he was talking about. Much later, when I became praetor of Camp Jupiter, I began to suspect."**

"Ooh, suspect what?"

**"Suspect...what?"**

**"There is an old legend that the praetors of Camp Jupiter have passed down through the centuries. If it's true, it may explain why our two groups of demigods have never been able to work together. It may be the cause of our animosity. Until this old score is finally settled, so the legend goes, Romans and Greeks will never be at peace. And the legend centers on Athena–"**

"I hate that legend, I hate Romans, and I hate that we're reading a book about Romans!" Athena rambled.

"Athena hates a book?" Hermes whispered to Apollo.

**A shrill sound pierced the air. Light flashed in the corner of Annabeth's eye.**

**She turned in time to see an explosion blast a new crater in the forum. A burning couch tumbled through the air. Demigods scattered in panic.**

**"Giants?" Annabeth reached for her dagger, which of course wasn't there. "I thought their army was defeated!"**

"Me too." wondered Will.

**"It isn't the giants." Reyna's eyes seethed with rage. "You've betrayed our trust."**

"What?!" Thalia screamed.

**"What? No!"**

**As soon as she said it, the Argo II launched a second volley. Its port ballista fired a massive spear wreathed in Greek fire, which sailed straight through the broken dome of the Senate House and exploded inside, lighting up the building like a jack-o'-lantern. If anyone had been in there...**

**"Gods, no." A wave of nausea almost made Annabeth's knees buckle. "Reyna, it isn't possible. We'd never do this!"**

**The metal dogs ran to their mistress's side. They snarled at Annabeth but paced uncertainly, as if reluctant to attack.**

**"You're telling the truth," Reyna judged. "Perhaps you were not aware of this treachery, but **_**someone **_**must pay."**

"Meaning the Greeks." sighed Thalia.

**Down in the forum, chaos was spreading. Crowds were pushing and shoving. Fistfights were breaking out.**

**"Bloodshed," Reyna said.**

"Finally some action!" Ares said excitedly.

**"We have to stop it!"**

**Annabeth had a horrible feeling this might be the last time Reyna and she ever acted in agreement, but together they ran down the hill. If weapons had been allowed in the city, Annabeth's friends would have already been dead. The Roman demigods in the forum had coalesced into an angry mob. Some threw plates, food, and rocks at the Argo II, which was pointless, as most of the stuff fell back into the crowd. **

"Ow," winced Travis, "that sounds hurtful."

**Several dozen Romans had surrounded Piper and Jason, who were trying to calm them without much luck. Piper's charmspeak was useless against so many screaming, angry demigods. Jason's forehead was bleeding. His purple cloak had been ripped to shreds. He kept pleading, "I'm on your side!"**

"But what about our Camp Half-Blood adventures?" Will protested.

Bobby snorted, "Please, you probably don't have as many memories as Jason and I do."

**but his orange Camp Half-Blood T-shirt didn't help matters–nor did the warship overhead, firing flaming spears into New Rome. One landed nearby and blasted a toga shop to rubble.**

**"Pluto's pauldrons," Reyna cursed. "Look."**

Hades flickered to Pluto for a moment, "Stop cursing with my name!"

He flickered back.

**Armed legionnaires were hurrying toward the forum. Two artillery crews had set up catapults just outside the Pomeranian Line and were preparing to fire at the Argo II.**

**"That'll just make things worse," Annabeth said.**

**"I hate my job," Reyna growled. **

"Me too." Apollo said.

"You don't have a job." Artemis told him.

"Unlike me, delivering all you lazy people's mail and messages." Hermes muttered.

**She rushed off toward the legionnaires, her dogs at her side.**

_**Percy, **_**Annabeth thought, scanning the forum desperately. **_**Where are you?**_

**Two Romans tried to grab her. She ducked past them, plunging into the crowd. As if the angry Romans, burning couches, and exploding building weren't confusing enough, hundreds of purple ghosts drifted through the forum, passing straight through the demigods' bodies and wailing incoherently. The fauns had also taken advantage of the chaos. They swarmed the dining tables, grabbing food, plates, and cups. One trotted by Annabeth with his arms full of tacos and an entire pineapple between his teeth.**

The group laughed at the image, forgetting that they were about to go in a war, for a moment.

**A statue of Terminus exploded into being, right in front of Annabeth. He yelled at her in Latin, no doubt calling her a liar and a rule breaker; but she pushed the statue over and kept running.**

"Ooh, she's definitely going to be on his bad list now." Bobby grinned.

**Finally she spotted Percy. He and his friends, Hazel and Frank, were standing in the middle of a fountain as Percy repelled the angry Romans with blasts of water. Percy's toga was in tatters, but he looked unhurt.**

**Annabeth called to him as another explosion rocked the forum. This time the flash of light was directly overhead. One of the Roman catapults had fired, and the Argo II groaned and tilted sideways, flames bubbling over its bronze-plated hull.**

"Leo worked so hard on that." Hephaestus said quietly.

**Annabeth noticed a figure clinging desperately to the rope ladder, trying to climb down. It was Octavian, his robes steaming and his face black with soot.**

**Over by the fountain, Percy blasted the Roman mob with more water. Annabeth ran toward him, ducking a Roman fist and a flying plate of sandwiches.**

"What?! Why would there be a flying plate of sandwiches?" Apollo exclaimed.

"They did just have lunch." Artemis reminded her brother.

**"Annabeth!" Percy called. "What–?"**

**"I don't know!" she yelled.**

**"I'll tell you what!" cried a voice from above. Octavian had reached the bottom of the ladder. "The Greeks have fired on us! Your boy Leo has his weapons trained on Rome!" **

**Annabeth's chest filled with liquid hydrogen. She felt like she might shatter into a million frozen pieces.**

**"You're lying," she said. "Leo would never–"**

**"I was just there!" Octavian shrieked. "I saw it with my own eyes!"**

**The Argo II returned fire. Legionnaires on the field scattered as one of their catapults was blasted to splinters.**

**"You see?" Octavian screamed. "Romans, kill the invaders!"**

"YES KILL THE INVADERS!" yelled Ares.

Athena turned to Ares, "Those 'invades' are GREEK!"

"Oh," Ares thought for a moment. "KILL THE ROMANS, GREEKS!"

"But their outnumbered." pointed out Hephaestus.

**Annabeth growled in frustration. There was no time for anyone to figure out the truth. The crew from Camp Half-Blood was outnumbered a hundred to one, and even if Octavian had managed to stage some sort of trick (which she thought likely), they'd never be able to convince the Romans before they were overrun and killed.**

**"We have to leave," she told Percy. "**_**Now."**_

"No kidding." Hades said.

"Nah, they should stay and fight!" Ares argued.

**He nodded grimly. "Hazel, Frank, you've got to make a choice. Are you coming?"**

**Hazel looked terrified, but she donned her cavalry helmet. "Of course we are. But you'll never make it to the ship unless we buy you some time."**

**"How?"Annabeth asked.**

**Hazel whistled. Instantly a blur of beige shot across the forum. A majestic horse materialized next to the fountain.**

"Why does he sound familiar?" Poseidon muttered to himself.

**He reared, whinnying and scattering the mob. Hazel climbed on his back like she'd been born to ride. Strapped to the horse's saddle was a Roman cavalry sword.**

**Hazel unsheathed her golden blade. "Send me an Iris-message when you're safely away, and we'll rendezvous," she said. "Arion, ride!"**

"Is that our son?" Poseidon asked Demeter.

"Sadly yes it is, and it will be our only son."

"Since when did you guys have 'a thing'?" Apollo asked.

"A long time ago, and it wasn't even 'a thing'. He practically raped me!" Demeter shuddered.

"Not rape, that sounds too cruel." Poseidon protested.

"But it's the truth."

**The horse zipped through the crowd with incredible speed, pushing back Romans and causing mass panic.**

**Annabeth felt a glimmer of hope. Maybe they could make it out of here alive. Then, from halfway across the forum, she heard Jason shouting.**

**"Romans!" he cried. "Please!"**

**He and Piper were being pelted with plates and stones. Jason tried to shield Piper, but a brick caught him above the eye. **

"Ouch," winced Hermes.

"Jason!" cried out Reyna.

"Aww, tragic love!" giggled Aphrodite.

**He crumpled, and the crowd surged forward.**

**"Get back!" Piper screamed. Her charmspeak rolled over the mob, making them hesitate, but Annabeth knew the effect wouldn't last. Percy and she couldn't possibly reach them in time to help.**

**"Frank," Percy said, "it's up to you. Can you help them?"**

**Annabeth didn't understand how Frank could do that all by himself, but he swallowed nervously.**

**"Oh, gods," he murmured. "Okay, sure. Just get up the ropes. Now."**

**Percy and Annabeth lunged for the ladder. Octavian was still clinging to the bottom, but Percy yanked him off and threw him into the mob.**

"Wow..." Bobby said slowly, "I've always wanted to do that to him."

"Percy is so strong!" Aphrodite said, dreamily.

"Um, the kid is like 100 pounds max." Gwen corrected.

**They began to climb as armed legionnaires flooded into the forum. Arrows whistled past Annabeth's head. An explosion almost knocked her off her ladder. Halfway up, she heard a roar below and glanced down.**

**Romans screamed and scattered as a full-sized dragon charged through the forum–a beast even scarier than the bronze dragon figurehead on the Argo II. It had rough gray skin like a Komodo lizard's and leathery bat wings. Arrows and rocks bounced harmlessly off its hide as it lumbered toward Piper and Jason, grabbed them with its front claws, and vaulted into the air.**

"Ah! It's gonna eat Jason!" Dakota yelled.

**"Is that...?" Annabeth couldn't even put the thought into words.**

**"Frank," Percy confirmed, a few feet above her. "He has a few special talents."**

"That's so cool!"

**"Understatement," Annabeth muttered. "Keep climbing!"**

**Without the dragon and Hazel's horse to distract the archers, they never would have made it up the ladder; but finally they climbed past a row of broken aerial oars and onto the deck. The rigging was on fire. The foresail was ripped down the middle, and the ship listed badly to starboard.**

**There was no sign of Coach Hedge,**

Grover scratched his head, "That's odd, he's always around during a battle."

**but Leo stood amidships, calmly reloading the ballista. Annabeth's gut twisted in horror.**

**"Leo!" she screamed. "What are you doing?"**

**"Destroy them..." He faced Annabeth. His eyes were glazed. His movements were like a robot's. "Destroy them all."**

"Whoa, Leo got turned into a robot!" Travis grinned.

**He turned back to the ballista, but Percy tackled him. Leo's head hit the deck hard, and his eyes rolled up so that only the whites showed.**

"Ew."

**The gray dragon soared into view. It circled the ship once and landed at the bow, depositing Jason and Piper, who both collapsed.**

**"Go!" Percy yelled. "Get us out of here!"**

**With a shock, Annabeth realized he was talking to her.**

**She ran for the helm. She made the mistake of glancing over the rail and saw armed legionnaires closing ranks in the forum, preparing flaming arrows.**

"You guys have flaming arrows too?" Will asked the Romans.

Bobby nodded, "Yeah, but those are one of the only types we have."

**Hazel spurred Arion, and they raced out of the city with a mob chasing after them. More catapults were being wheeled into range. All along the Pomerian Line, the statues of Terminus were glowing purple, as if building up enough energy for some kind of attack.**

**Annabeth looked over the controls. She cursed Leo for making them so complicated. No time for fancy maneuvers, but she did know one basic command: **_**Up. **_

"That's a good movie." Ares said randomly. Everyone stared at him oddly.

Athena sighed, "Well, at least she knew one command."

**She grabbed the aviation throttle and yanked it straight back. The ship groaned. The bow tilted up at a horrifying angle. The mooring lines snapped, and the Argo II shot into the clouds.**

"Finally done!" Gwen exclaimed, tossing the book to Clarisse, who glared at her.

"Ugh, when are we going to be done with this book!" groaned Travis.

Clarisse flipped through the book. "In about.. forty-eight chapters."

Grover's eyes widened. "That's a lot of reading to do."

"We can take breaks in between like every ten chapters." suggested Artemis.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure only Athena here would want to read this whole book in one day." Apollo teased.

Athena rolled her eyes. "Well, we better continue reading if we have forty-eight chapters to go."

Clarisse cleared her throat, **"Leo V" **

"Yes! We finally get another point-of-view!" Will cheered.

* * *

**Your welcome. ~Autumn **


	6. Chapter 5

******A/N: I'm back! And guess what? SCHOOL IS OUT FOR ME! So, updates should be quicker! (or is it more quickly? Oh well who cares!) I appreciate all the reviews, follows, and favorites! **

* * *

Clarisse cleared her throat (again), "Leo V"

"You already said that." pointed out Travis.

Clarisse glared at him, "Shut up or I'm gonna chuck this book at you."

Travis gulped and held up his hands, ready for defense. Clarisse glared at him again and then started to read.

**Leo wished he could invent a time machine. **

**"**Dude, me too." Travis agreed enthusiastically**. **

"That would be pretty cool." Reyna said. She wished she could go back to when she had a chance with Jason.

**He'd go back two hours and undo what had happened. Either that, or he could invent a Slap-Leo-in-the-Face machine to punish himself, though he doubted it would hurt as badly as the look Annabeth was giving him.**

Will winced, "Her glares are pretty scary."

Athena seemed to be proud of this fact.

**"One more time," she said. "Exactly what happened?"**

**Leo slumped against the mast. His head still throbbed from hitting the deck. All around him, his beautiful new ship was in shambles. **

"And he worked so hard on that ship." Hephaestus murmured.

**The aft crossbows were piles of kindling. The foresail was tattered. The satellite array that powered the on board internet and TV was blown to bits, which had really made Coach Hedge mad. **

Artemis raised one of her eyebrows, "That was the only thing he was concerned about?"

"Hey, I would be very concerned too!" Apollo protested.

Thalia scoffed, "Boys."

**Their bronze dragon figurehead, Festus, was coughing up smoke like he had a hairball, and Leo could tell from the groaning sounds on the port side that some of the aerial oars had been knocked out of alignment or broken off completely, which explained why the ship was listing and shuddering as it flew, the engine wheezing like an asthmatic steam train.**

**He choked back a sob. "I don't know. It's fuzzy."**

**Too many people were looking at him: Annabeth (Leo hated to make her angry; that girl scared him), **

Travis nodded sympathetically, "Me too, dude."

**Coach Hedge with his furry goat legs, his orange polo shirt, and his baseball bat (did he have to carry that everywhere?),**

"It's a nice choice of weapon to have for self-defense." Ares said, approvingly.

** and the newcomer, Frank.**

Dakota turned to Gwen, "Isn't he in our cohort?"

"Yeah, well he was."

**Leo wasn't sure what to make of Frank. He looked like a baby sumo wrestler, though Leo wasn't stupid enough to say that aloud.**

"Good choice."

**Leo's memory was hazy, but while he'd been half conscious, he was pretty sure he'd seen a ****dragon land on the ship–a dragon that had turned into Frank.**

**Annabeth crossed her arms. "You mean you don't remember?"**

**"I..." Leo felt like he was trying to swallow a marble. "I remember, but it's like I was watching myself do things. I couldn't control it."**

"He must have been possessed." analyzed Athena.

"By who?" asked Will.

"Or _what_," corrected Demeter.

**Coach Hedge tapped his bet against the deck. In his gym clothes, with his cap pulled over his horns, he looked just like he used to at the Wilderness School, where he'd spent a year undercover as Jason, Piper, and Leo's P.E. teacher. The way the old satyr was glowering, Leo almost wondered if the coach was going to order him to do push-ups.**

**"Look, kid," Hedge said, "you blew up some stuff. You attacked some Romans. Awesome!**

Reyna groaned, "No, not awesome!" while the other Romans made other protested among themselves.

Athena grinned evilly, "Actually I think I agree with the satyr."

The Romans would defend themselves, except it looked like Athena was going to blast someone-probably one of them- any moment.

** Excellent! But did you have to knock out the satellite channels? I was right in the middle of watching a cage match."**

"**Coach," Annabeth said, "why don't you make sure all the fires are out?"**

"**But I already did that."**

"**Do it again."**

**The satyr trudged off, muttering under his breath. Even Hedge wasn't crazy enough to defy Annabeth.**

**She knelt next to Leo. Her gray eyes were as steely as ball bearings. Her blond hair fell loose around her shoulders, but Leo didn't find that attractive. **

"But Percy does," Travis grinned.

Will shook his head in an agreement, "I think that's the first thing he found attractive about her, her hair."

**He had no idea where the stereotype of dumb giggly blondes came from.**

"Seriously, where the Hades did they get that idea?" questioned Thalia.

"Not from my children at least." Athena assured.

Hades groaned, "Please stop cursing in my name."

** Ever since he'd met Annabeth at the Grand Canyon last winter, when she'd marched toward him with that Give me Percy Jackson or I'll kill you expression, Leo thought of blondes as much too smart and much too dangerous.**

"**Leo," she said calmly, "did Octavian trick you somehow? Did he frame you, or—"**

"**No." Leo could have lied and blamed that stupid Roman, but he didn't want to make a bad situation worse.**

"**The guy was a jerk, but he didn't fire on the camp. I did."**

**The new kid, Frank, scowled. "On purpose?"**

"He better of not have..." Bobby trailed off.

"**No!" Leo squeezed his eyes shut. "Well, yes …**

"Huh?"

"He just said no though..."

**"What?" **

** I mean, I didn't want to. But at the same time, I felt like I wanted to. Something was making me do it. There was this cold feeling inside me—"**

"**A cold feeling." Annabeth's tone changed. She sounded almost … scared.**

"**Yeah," Leo said. "Why?"**

**From below decks, Percy called up, "Annabeth, we need you."**

**_Oh, gods,_**** Leo thought. ****_Please let Jason be okay._**

Everyone that had known Jason long enough (*cough* the Romans and Thalia *cough*) looked like they were thinking the same prayer.

**As soon as they'd gotten on board, Piper had taken Jason below. The cut on his head had looked pretty bad. Leo had known Jason longer than anyone at Camp Half-Blood. **

"But not as long as us." The Romans smiled proudly.

**They were best friends. If Jason didn't make it …**

"**He'll be fine." Annabeth's expression softened. "Frank, I'll be back. Just … watch Leo. Please."**

**Frank nodded.**

**If it was possible for Leo to feel worse, he did. Annabeth now trusted a Roman demigod she'd known for like, three seconds, more than she trusted Leo.**

"He blew up New Rome, possibly making the circumstance between the Greeks and Romans worse. I would trust the Roman before him." stated Reyna

Thalia coughed, "You are Roman, so that's being biased."

**Once she was gone, Leo and Frank stared at each other. The big dude looked pretty odd in his bed sheet toga, with his gray pullover hoodie and jeans, and a bow and quiver from the ship's ****armory slung over his shoulder. Leo remembered the time he had met the Hunters of Artemis—a bunch of cute lithe girls in silvery clothes,**

Apollo grinned, "See sis? I'm not the only one to think that!"

"No boy contact!" Artemis snapped. "And don't call me sis!"

** all armed with bows. He imagined Frank frolicking along with them. The idea was so ridiculous, it almost made him feel better.**

Everyone burst out laughing at the image of the huge Roman with the Hunters of Artemis.

"**So," Frank said. "Your name isn't Sammy?"**

"What kind of question is that?"

**Leo scowled. "What kind of question is that?"**

"**Nothing," Frank said quickly. "I just— Nothing. About the firing on the camp … Octavian could be behind it, like magically or something. He didn't want the Romans getting along with you guys."**

**Leo wanted to believe that. He was grateful to this kid for not hating him. But he knew it hadn't been Octavian. Leo had walked to a ballista and started firing. Part of him had known it was wrong. He'd asked himself: What the heck am I doing? But he'd done it anyway. **

"That's what I think every time I rob something-but I normally don't have regrets." Hermes admitted.

**Maybe he was going crazy. The stress of all those months working on the Argo II might've finally made him crack.**

**But he couldn't think about that. He needed to do something productive. His hands needed to be ****busy.**

"**Look," he said, "I should talk to Festus and get a damage report. You mind …?"**

**Frank helped him up. "Who is Festus?"**

"**My friend," Leo said. "His name isn't Sammy either, in case you're wondering. Come on. I'll introduce you."**

**Fortunately the bronze dragon wasn't damaged. Well, aside from the fact that last winter he'd lost everything except his head**

Poseidon snorted, "Because losing your entire body isn't damaging."

**—but Leo didn't count that.**

**When they reached the bow of the ship, the figurehead turned a hundred and eighty degrees to look at them. Frank yelped and backed away.**

"**It's alive!" he said.**

**Leo would have laughed if he hadn't felt so bad. "Yeah. Frank, this is Festus. He used to be a full bronze dragon, but we had an accident."**

"**You have a lot of accidents," Frank noted.**

"He _causes_ a lot of accidents," muttered Bobby. "Like he _accidentally_ fired at New Rome."

"He was freaking possessed!" protested Travis, defending his friend.

"**Well, some of us can't turn into dragons, so we have to build our own."**

"Touche."

**Leo arched his eyebrows at Frank. "Anyway, I revived him as a figurehead. He's kind of the ship's main interface now. How are things looking, Festus?"**

**Festus snorted smoke and made a series of squeaking, whirring sounds. Over the last few months, Leo had learned to interpret this machine language. Other demigods could understand Latin and Greek. Leo could speak Creak and Squeak.**

"**Ugh," Leo said. "Could be worse, but the hull is compromised in several places. The port aerial oars have to be fixed before we can go full speed again. We'll need some repair materials: Celestial bronze, tar, lime—"**

"Limes? What the Hades does he need limes for?" Clarisse demanded.

Hades grunted, " I would appreciate it if you didn't curse with my name."

**"What do you need limes for?"**

"That's what I asked!"

"**Dude, lime. Calcium carbonate, used in cement and a bunch of other— Ah, never mind. The point is, this ship isn't going far unless we can fix it."**

**Festus made another click-creak noise that Leo didn't recognize. It sounded like AY-zuhl.**

"**Oh … Hazel," he deciphered. "That's the girl with the curly hair, right?"**

**Frank gulped. "Is she okay?"**

"**Yeah, she's fine," Leo said. "According to Festus, her horse is racing along below. She's following us."**

"**We've got to land, then," Frank said.**

**Leo studied him. "She's your girlfriend?"**

**Frank chewed his lip. "Yes."**

"**You don't sound sure."**

Aphrodite giggled, "Ooh Frank, I would keep a hold on your girlfriend or else Leo is going in."

"**Yes. Yes, definitely. I'm sure."**

**Leo raised his hands. "Okay, fine. The problem is we can only manage one landing. The way the ****hull and the oars are, we won't be able to lift off again until we repair, so we'll have to make sure we land somewhere with all the right supplies."**

**Frank scratched his head. "Where do you get Celestial bronze? You can't just stock up at Home Depot."**

"Actually I delivered some there the other day," Hermes disagreed, "I'm not sure why they needed it."

"**Festus, do a scan."**

"**He can scan for magic bronze?" Frank marveled. "Is there anything he can't do?"**

"Like seriously."

"I bet it can't sing." Apollo boasted.

Hephaestus spoke, "But it probably can play music."

**Leo thought: You should've seen him when he had a body. But he didn't say that. It was too painful, remembering the way Festus used to be. Leo peered over the ship's bow. The Central California valley was passing below. Leo didn't hold out much hope that they could find what they needed all in one place, but they had to try. Leo also wanted to put as much distance as possible between himself and New Rome. The Argo II could cover vast distances pretty quickly, thanks to its magical engine, but Leo figured the Romans had magic travel methods of their own.**

"Hmm, something like that." Gwen said slyly.

**Behind him, the stairs creaked. Percy and Annabeth climbed up, their faces grim.**

**Leo's heart stumbled. "Is Jason—?"**

Thalia and the Romans leaned forward to hear the answer.

"**He's resting," Annabeth said. "Piper's keeping an eye on him, but he should be fine."**

Everyone that cared looked relieved.

**Percy gave him a hard look. "Annabeth says you did fire the ballista?"**

"**Man, I—I don't understand how it happened. I'm so sorry—"**

"**Sorry?" Percy growled.**

"Ooh, Percy just growled at him..." Travis indicated.

Will explained, "It's pretty scary if Percy growls at you." He shuddered as if he had a past experience of Percy growling at him.

**Annabeth put a hand on her boyfriend's chest. **

Aphrodite sighed, "How romantic!"

Everyone, especially Athena and Poseidon, looked at her oddly.

**"We'll figure it out later. Right now, we have to regroup and make a plan. What's the situation with the ship?"**

**Leo's legs trembled. The way Percy had looked at him made him feel the same as when Jason summoned lightning. **

Thalia looked thoughtful, "I wonder if I terrify people when I summon lightning."

"Eh, sometimes." Clarisse said.

**Leo's skin tingled, and every instinct in his body screamed, Duck! He told Annabeth about the damage and the supplies they needed. At least he felt better talking about something fixable. He was bemoaning the shortage of Celestial bronze when Festus began to whir and squeak.**

"**Perfect." Leo sighed with relief.**

"**What's perfect?" Annabeth said. "I could use some perfect about now."**

**Leo managed a smile. "Everything we need in one place. Frank, why don't you turn into a bird or something? Fly down and tell your girlfriend to meet us at the Great Salt Lake in Utah."**

"I wonder why there..."

**Once they got there, it wasn't a pretty landing. With the oars damaged and the foresail torn, Leo could barely manage a controlled descent. The others strapped themselves in below—except for Coach Hedge, who insisted on clinging to the forward rail, yelling, "YEAH! Bring it on, lake!"**

"Yeah 'cause the lake will totally attack the ship." Gwen rolled her eyes.

Poseidon grinned, "Unless there were some lake nymphs there. Or if I was there and controlled the water." He paused, "But otherwise no it wouldn't."

**Leo stood astern, alone at the helm, and aimed as best he could. Festus creaked and whirred warning signals, which were relayed through the intercom to the quarterdeck.**

"**I know, I know," Leo said, gritting his teeth. He didn't have much time to take in the scenery. To the southeast, a city was nestled in the foothills of a mountain range, blue and purple in the ****afternoon shadows. A flat desert landscape spread to the south. Directly beneath them the Great Salt Lake glittered like aluminum foil, the shoreline etched with white salt marshes that reminded Leo of aerial photos of Mars.**

"**Hang on, Coach!" he shouted. "This is going to hurt."**

"**I was born for hurt!"**

"I bet he was..." murmured Grover.

**WHOOM! A swell of salt water washed over the bow, dousing Coach Hedge. The Argo II listed ****dangerously to starboard, then righted itself and rocked on the surface of the lake. Machinery hummed as the aerial blades that were still working changed to nautical form. Three banks of robotic oars dipped into the water and began moving them forward.**

"**Good job, Festus," Leo said. "Take us toward the south shore."**

"**Yeah!" Coach Hedge pumped his fists in the air. He was drenched from his horns to hooves, but grinning like a crazy goat. "Do it again!"**

"He's insane." Artemis observed.

"**Uh … maybe later," Leo said. "Just stay above deck, okay? You can keep watch, in case—you know, the lake decides to attack us or something."**

"Because it can definitely happen..." snorted Ares.

"**On it," Hedge promised.**

**Leo rang the All clear bell and headed for the stairs. Before he got there, a loud clump-clump-clump shook the hull. A tan stallion appeared on deck with Hazel Levesque on his back.**

"**How—?" Leo's question died in his throat. "We're in the middle of a lake! Can that thing fly?"**

"Can he?" asked Will.

"Not that I'm aware of." Demeter answered.

**The horse whinnied angrily.**

"**Arion can't fly," Hazel said. "But he can run across just about anything. Water, vertical surfaces, small mountains—none of that bothers him."**

"Because he's my son," Poseidon said proudly. "So that means he has my awesome powers."

Zeus disagreed, "But my powers are better."

"Hm, I think I disagree with both of you." Hades grinned evilly.

"**Oh."**

**Hazel was looking at him strangely, the way she had during the feast in the forum—like she was ****searching for something in his face. He was tempted to ask if they had met before, but he was sure they hadn't. He would remember a pretty girl paying such close attention to him. **

"I love love triangles!" Guess who said that.

**That didn't happen a lot. She's Frank's girlfriend, he reminded himself. Frank was still below, but Leo almost wished the big guy would come up the stairs. The way Hazel was studying Leo made him feel uneasy and self-conscious. Coach Hedge crept forward with his baseball bat, eyeing the magic horse suspiciously. "Valdez, does this count as an invasion?"**

"He better say no." threatened Poseidon

Demeter sneered, "Yeah because you care about him so much."

"I do care for him!"

"Since when?"

"Since-"

Athena interrupted, "Let's continue!"

"**No!" Leo said. "Um, Hazel, you'd better come with me. I built a stable below decks, if Arion wants to—"**

"**He's more of a free spirit." Hazel slipped out of the saddle. "He'll graze around the lake until I call him. But I want to see the ship. Lead the way."**

**The Argo II was designed like an ancient trireme, only twice as big. The first deck had one central corridor with crew cabins on either side. On a normal trireme, most of the space would've been taken up with three rows of benches for a few hundred sweaty guys to do the manual labor, but Leo's oars were automated and retractable, so they took up very little room inside the hull.**

**The ship's power came from the engine room on the second and lowest deck, which also housed sickbay, storage, and the stables. Leo led the way down the hall. He'd built the ship with eight cabins—seven for the demigods of the prophecy, and a room for Coach Hedge (Seriously—****Chiron considered him a responsible adult chaperone?).**

Thalia rolled her eyes, "What was Chiron thinking?"

"Seriously." Grover muttered.

**At the stern was a large mess hall/lounge, which was where Leo headed. On the way, they passed Jason's room. The door was open. Piper sat at the side of his berth, holding Jason's hand while he snored **

"Aw, my baby brother snores!" Thalia laughed while at the same time Aphrodite squealed, "How cute!"

**with an ice pack on his head. Piper glanced at Leo. She held a finger to her lips for quiet, but she didn't look angry. That was something. Leo tried to force down his guilt, and they kept walking. When they reached the mess hall, they found the others—Percy, Annabeth, and Frank—sitting dejectedly around the dining table.**

**Leo had made the lounge as nice as possible, since he figured they'd be spending a lot of time there. The cupboard was lined with magic cups and plates from Camp Half-Blood, which would fill up with whatever food or drink you wanted on command.**

**There was also a magical ice chest with canned drinks, perfect for picnics ashore. The chairs were cushy recliners with thousand-finger massage, **

"Whoa."

**built-in headphones,**

"Cool!"

** and sword and drink holders for all your demigod kicking-back needs.**

"I wish I was there!" Apollo whined.

Artemis replied, "Your a god, Apollo, I'm pretty sure you can just make those things appear now."

"Really? Okay!" He snapped his fingers but nothing appeared.

"It's probably because the Fates really want us to read this book for some reason." reasoned Hephaestus.

**There were no windows, but the walls were enchanted to show real-time footage from Camp Half-Blood—the beach, the forest, the strawberry fields—although now Leo was wondering if this made people homesick rather than happy. Percy was staring longingly at a sunset view of Half-Blood Hill, where the Golden Fleece glittered in the branches of the tall pine tree.**

"Percy is probably thinking of all the great memories he had there." Hestia said sympathetically.

"**So we've landed," Percy said. "What now?"**

**Frank plucked on his bowstring. "Figure out the prophecy? I mean … that was a prophecy Ella spoke, right? From the Sibylline Books?"**

"The what books?" asked Will.

Reyna explained, "The Sibylline Books are these books that had prophecies about Rome."

"**The what?" Leo asked.**

**Frank explained how their harpy friend was freakishly good at memorizing books.**

Athena smiled, "She's a smart harpy. I like her."

** At some point in the past, she'd inhaled a collection of ancient prophecies that had supposedly been destroyed around the fall of Rome.**

"**That's why you didn't tell the Romans," Leo guessed. "You didn't want them to get hold of her."**

"Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner, Leo actually predicted something!" Travis announced.

**Percy kept staring at the image of Half-Blood Hill. "Ella's sensitive. She was a captive when we ****found her. I just didn't want …" He made a fist. "It doesn't matter now. I sent Tyson an Iris-message, told him to take Ella to Camp Half-Blood. They'll be safe there."**

"Wow, Prissy actually did something smart." Clarisse smirked.

**Leo doubted that any of them would be safe, now that he had stirred up a camp of angry Romans ****on top of the problems they already had with Gaea and the giants; but he kept quiet.**

**Annabeth laced her fingers. "Let me think about the prophecy—but right now we have more immediate problems. We have to get this ship fixed. Leo, what do we need?"**

"Apparently limes." muttered Clarisse.

Thalia glared at her, "Just forget about the stupid limes!"

"**The easiest thing is tar." Leo was glad to change the subject. "We can get that in the city, at a ****roofing-supply store or someplace like that. Also, Celestial bronze and lime. According to Festus, we can find both of those on an island in the lake, just west of here."**

"**We'll have to hurry," Hazel warned. "If I know Octavian, he's searching for us with his auguries. The Romans will send a strike force after us. It's a matter of honor."**

**Leo felt everyone's eyes on him. "Guys … I don't know what happened. Honestly, I—"**

**Annabeth raised her hand. **

"Why the heck would she do that? They're not in school." snorted Clarisse.

"It's probably an Athenian instinct."

Athena clarified, "No, because its polite."

**"We've been talking. We agree it couldn't have been you, Leo. That cold feeling you mentioned … I felt it too. It must have been some sort of magic, either Octavian or Gaea or one of her minions. But until we understand what happened —"**

**Frank grunted. "How can we be sure it won't happen again?"**

**Leo's fingers heated up like they were about to catch fire.**

"Well that doesn't sound like a good feeling." Apollo winced.

** One of his powers as a son of Hephaestus was that he could summon flames at will; but he had to be careful not to do so by accident, especially on a ship filled with explosives and flammable supplies.**

"**I'm fine now," he insisted, though he wished he could be sure. "Maybe we should use the buddy system. Nobody goes anywhere alone. We can leave Piper and Coach Hedge on board with Jason. Send one team into town to get tar. Another team can go after the bronze and the lime."**

"**Split up?" Percy said. "That sounds like a really bad idea."**

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but I agree with Kelp Head. A monster could attack very easily and contacting the others would be difficult." Thalia pointed out.

"But if they split, it would make all the things they need to get done will get done quicker." argued Reyna.

Hermes looked thoughtful, "And monsters might not attack as likely if there are fewer in numbers."

"**It'll be quicker," Hazel put in. "Besides, there's a reason a quest is usually limited to three demigods, right?"**

**Annabeth raised her eyebrows, as if reappraising Hazel's merits.**

"**You're right. The same reason we needed the Argo II … outside camp, seven demigods in one place will attract way too much monstrous attention. The ship is designed to conceal and protect ****us. We should be safe enough on board; but if we go on expeditions, we shouldn't travel in groups larger than three. No sense alerting more of Gaea's minions than we have to."**

**Percy still didn't look happy about it, but he took Annabeth's hand. "As long as you're my buddy, I'm good."**

**The Greeks made puking noises while the Romans looked on amused. **

**Hazel smiled. "Oh, that's easy. Frank, you were amazing, turning into a dragon! Could you do it again to fly Annabeth and Percy into town for the tar?"**

**Frank opened his mouth like he wanted to protest. "I … I suppose. But what about you?"**

"**I'll ride Arion with Sa—with Leo, here." She fidgeted with her sword hilt, which made Leo uneasy. She had even more nervous energy than he did. "We'll get the bronze and the lime. We can all meet back here by dark."**

**Frank scowled. Obviously, he didn't like the idea of Leo going off with Hazel. **

"Love triangle!" squealed Aphrodite.

"I seriously think you make too many of these."

**For some reason, Frank's disapproval made Leo want to go. He had to prove he was trustworthy. He wasn't going to fire any random ballistae again.**

"**Leo," said Annabeth, "if we get the supplies, how long to fix the ship?"**

"**With luck, just a few hours."**

"**Fine," she decided. "We'll meet you back here as soon as possible, but stay safe. We could use some good luck. That doesn't mean we'll get it."**

"Ugh, I hate reading!" Clarisse yelled, tossing the book at Travis's head. Luckily he caught it at the last minute before it hit his head.

Travis sighed, "So I'm assuming that I'm reading next?"

Everyone nodded and Travis continued, "**Leo VI"**

* * *

**EDIT: I fixed all the un-needed bold lettering. I really wanted to post this last night but my dad really wanted to be on the computer and was yelling at me to hurry up so I couldn't edit anything. I also deleted/added some comments by the way. SO Review please? Any suggestions? **

**~Autumn **


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